Bat Wing Bowles Part 5

WA-HA-LOTE

The cowboy's day begins early, no matter how he spends his night. It was four o'clock in the morning and Bowles was dead with sleep when suddenly the light of a lantern was thrown in his eyes and he heard the cook's voice rousing up the horse wranglers.

"Wranglers!" he rasped, shaking Brigham by the shoulder. "Git up, Brig; it's almost day!"

"All right, Gus!" answered Brigham, cuddling down for another nap; but Gloomy Gus had awakened too many generations of cowboys to be deceived by a play like that, and on his way out to finish breakfast he stumbled over Brigham's boots and woke him up to give them to him. So, with many a yawn and sigh, poor Brigham and his fellow wrangler stamped on their boots and went out to round up the horse pasture, and shortly afterward a shrill yell from the cook gave notice that breakfast was ready. Five minutes later he yelled again and beat harshly on a dishpan; then, as the rumble of the horse herd was heard, he came and kicked open the door.

"Hey, git up, boys!" he shouted. "Breakfast's waitin' and the remuda is in the c'rell! The old man will be down hollerin' 'Hawses!' before you git yore coffee!"

The bite of the cold morning air swept in as he stood there and roused them at last to action. Swiftly Buck and Bill and Happy Jack rolled out and hustled into their clothes; other men not yet known by name hurried forth to wash for breakfast; and at last Bowles stepped out, to find the sky full of stars. A cold wind breathed in from the east, where the deceitful radiance of the false dawn set a halo on the distant ridges; and the cowboy's life, for the moment, seemed to offer very little to an errant lover. Around the cook's fire, with their coat collars turned up to their ears, a group of punchers was hovering in a half-circle, leaving the other half for Gloomy Gus. Their teeth chattered in the frosty silence, and one by one they washed their faces in hot water from the cook's can and waited for the signal to eat. Then the wranglers came in, half frozen from their long ride in the open pasture, and as Brigham poured out a cup of coffee, regardless, old Gus raised the lid from a Dutch oven, glanced in at the nicely browned biscuits and hollered:

"Fly at it!"

A general scramble for plates and cups followed; then a raid on the ovens and coffee-pots and kettles; and inside of three minutes twenty men were crouching on the ground, each one supplied with beans, biscuits and beef--the finest the range produced. They ate and came back for more, and Bowles tried to follow their example; but breakfast at home had been served at a later hour, and it had not been served on the ground, either. However, he ate what he could and drank a pint of coffee that made him as brave as a lion. It was real range coffee, that had set on the grounds over night and been boiled for an hour in the morning. It was strong, and made him forget the cold; but just as he was beginning to feel like a man again silence fell on the crowd, and Henry Lee appeared.

In his riding boots, and with a wooden-handled old Colt's in his shaps, Mr. Lee was a different creature from the little man that Bowles had whipsawed on the previous evening. He was a dominating man, and as he stood by the fire for a minute and waited for enough light to rope by, Mr. Bowles began to have his regrets. It is one thing to bully-rag a man on his front steps, and quite another to ride bronks on a cold morning.

The memory of a man named Dunbar came over him, and he wondered if he had died in the morning, when his bones were brittle and cold. He remembered other things, including Dixie Lee, but without any positive inspiration; and he took a sneaking pleasure at last in the fact that Mr. Lee appeared to have forgotten all about him.

But Henry Lee was not the man to let an Eastern tenderfoot run it over him, and just as he called for horses and started over toward the corral he said to Hardy Atkins:

"Oh, Hardy, catch up that Dunbar horse and put this gentleman's saddle on him, will you?"

He waved his hand toward Bowles, whose heart had just missed a beat, and pulled on a trim little glove.

"What--Dunbar?" gasped the bronco-twister, startled out of his calm.

"Yes," returned Lee quietly. "The gentleman claims he can ride."

"Who--him?" demanded Atkins, pointing incredulously at the willowy Bowles.

"Yes--him!" answered the cattleman firmly. "And after what he said to me last evening he's either got to ride Dunbar or own himself a coward--that's all."

"Oh," responded the twister, relieved by the alternative; and with a wink at Buck and the rest of the crowd he went rollicking out to the corral. By the usual sort of telepathy Hardy Atkins had come to hate and despise Bowles quite as heartily as Bowles had learned to hate him, and the prospect of putting the Easterner up against Dunbar made his feet bounce off the ground. First he roped out his own mount and saddled him by the gate; then, as the slower men caught their horses and prepared for the work of the day, he leaned against the bars and pointed out the man-killer to Bowles, meanwhile edging in his little talk.

"See that brown over there?" he queried, as Bowles stared breathlessly out over the sea of tossing heads. "No, here he is now--that wall-eyed devil with his hip knocked down--he got that when he rared over and killed Dunbar. Can't you see 'im? Right over that bald-faced sorrel!

Yes, that hawse that limps behind!"

At that moment some impetuous cowboy roped at his mount and the round corral became a raging maelstrom of rushing horses, thundering about in a circle and throwing the dirt twenty feet high; but as a counter movement checked the charge and the wind blew the dust away, the lanky form of the horse that killed Dunbar loomed up on the edge of the herd.

He was a big, raw-boned brute, colored a sunburned, dusty brown, and a limp in his off hind leg gave him a slinking, stealthy air; but what impressed Bowles the most was the sinister look in his eyes. If ever a horse was a congenital criminal, Dunbar was the animal. His head was long and bony and bulging around the ears, and his eyes were sunk deep, like a rattlesnake's, and with a rattlesnake's baleful glare. But there was more than a snaky wildness in them: the wicked creature seemed to be meditating upon his awful past, and scheming greater crimes, until his haggard, watchful eyes were set in a fixed, brooding stare. He was a bad horse, old Dunbar, and Atkins was there to play him up.

"You want to be careful not to hurt that hawse," he warned, as Bowles caught his breath and started. "The boss expects to git a thousand dollars fer him at the Cheyenne Rough-Riding Contest next summer. Now that old Steamboat is rode, and Teddy Roosevelt is busted, they's big money hangin' up fer a bad hawse. Got to have one, you know. It's fer the championship of the world, and if they don't git another man-killer they can't have no contest. I would've tried him myself, but he's too valuable. How do you ride--with yore stirrups tied? No? Well, I reckon you're right--likely to get caught and killed if he throws himself over back. You ain't down here fer a Wild West Show, are ye? Uh-huh, jest thought you might be--knowed you wasn't a puncher. Well, we'll saddle him up fer you now--if you say so!"

He lingered significantly on the last words, and Henry Lee, who was standing near, half smiled; but there must have been some sporting blood back in the Bowles family somewhere, for Mr. Bowles merely murmured:

"If you will, please!" and got his saddle.

So there was nothing for Atkins to do but go in and try to catch Dunbar.

The bronco-twister shook out his rope, glanced at the boss, glanced at him again, and dropped reluctantly into the corral. Hardy Atkins would rather have taken a whipping than put a saddle on Dunbar; but he was up against it now, so he lashed his loop out on the ground and advanced to make his throw. One by one the horses that had gathered about Dunbar ran off to the right or left, and as the old man-killer made his dash to escape the long rope shot out with a lightning swiftness and settled around his neck. The twister pa.s.sed the rope behind him, sat back on it and dug his high heels into the ground; but the jerk was too much for his hand-grip, and before anyone could tail on behind he let go and turned the horse loose.

Then, as the great whirlpool of frightened horses went charging around the corral, Buck Buchanan, the man with the bull-moose voice, hopped down and rushed to the center. Some one threw an extra rope to Hardy Atkins, and once more they closed in on the outlaw. But the horse that killed Dunbar was better than the two of them, and soon he had a second rope to trail. A third and a fourth man leaped in to join the conflict; and as they roped and ran and fought with Dunbar the remuda went crazy with excitement and threatened to break down the fence.

"Put up them bars!" yelled Hardy Atkins, as a beautiful, dappled black made a balk to leap over the gate. "Now all on this rope, boys--snub him to that post--oh, h.e.l.l!" The pistol-like report of a gra.s.s rope parting filled out the rest of the sentence. Then the bronco-twister came limping over to the gate where Bowles and Henry Lee were sitting, shaking the blood from a freshly barked knuckle.

"We can't hold the blinkety-blank," he announced, gazing defiantly at the boss. "And what's the use, anyhow?" he demanded, petulantly. "They ain't a bronk in the remuda that can't throw this Englishman a mile! Of course, if you want us to take a day to it----"

"Well, catch Wa-ha-lote, then!" snapped Mr. Lee. "And be quick about it!

I've got something else to do, Mr. Bowles," he observed tartly, "besides saddle up man-killers for a man that can't sit a trotting-horse!"

This was evidently an allusion to Mr. Bowles' way of putting the English on a jog-trot; but Bowles was too much interested to resent it. He was watching Hardy Atkins advancing on the dappled black that had tried to jump the bars.

"Oh," he cried enthusiastically, "is that the horse you mean? Oh, isn't he a beautiful creature! It's so kind of you to make the change!"

"Ye-es!" drawled Mr. Lee; and all the cowboys smiled. Next to Dunbar, Wa-ha-lote was the champion sc.r.a.pper of the Bat Wing. There had been a day when he was gentle, but ever since a drunken Texas cowboy had ridden him with the spurs his views of life had changed. He had decided that no decent, self-respecting horse would stand for such treatment and, after piling a few adventurous bronco-busters, had settled down to a life of ease and plenty. The finest looking horse in the remuda, by all odds, was old Wa-ha-lote, the Water-dog. He was fat and shiny, and carried his tail straight up, like a banner; the yellow dapples, like the spots on a salamander's black hide--whence his Mexican name, Wa-ha-lote--were bright and plain in the sunlight; and he held his head up high as he ramped around the corral.

The sun had come up over the San Ramon Mountains while Hardy Atkins was wrestling with Dunbar; it soared still higher while the boys caught Wa-ha-lote. But caught he was, and saddled, for the horse never lived that a bunch of Texas punchers cannot tie. It was hot work, with skinned knuckles and rope-burned hands to pay for it; but the hour of revenge was at hand, and they called for Bowles. A wild look was in every eye, and heaven only knows what would have happened had he refused; but the hot sun and the excitement had aroused Mr. Bowles from his calm, and he answered like a bridegroom. Perhaps a flash of white up by the big house added impetus to his feet; but, be that as it may, he slipped blithely through the bars and hurried out to his mount.

"Oh, what a beautiful horse!" he cried, standing back to admire his lines. "Do you need that blinder on his eyes?"

"What I say!" commented Atkins, ambiguously. "Now you pile on him and take this quirt, and when I push the blind up you holler and throw it into 'im. Are you ready?"

"Just a moment!" murmured Bowles, and for the s.p.a.ce of half a minute he stood patting old Water-dog's neck where he stood there, grim and waiting, his iron legs set like posts and every muscle aquiver. Then, with unexpected quickness, he swung lightly into the saddle and settled himself in the stirrups.

"All right," he said. "Release him!"

"Release him it is!" shouted Atkins, with brutal exulting. "Let 'im go, boys; and--_yee-pah_!"

He raised the blind with a single jerk, leaped back, and warped Wa-ha-lote over the rump with a coil of rope. Other men did as much, or more; and Bowles did not forget to holler.

"Get up, old fellow!" he shouted.

As the lashes fell, Wa-ha-lote made one mighty plunge--and stopped.

Then, as the crowd scattered, he shook out his mane and charged straight at the high, pole gate. A shout went up, and a cry of warning, and as the cowboys who draped the bars scrambled down to escape the crash Bowles was seen to lean forward; he struck with his quirt, and Wa-ha-lote vaulted the bars like a hunter. But even then he was not satisfied. Two panel gates stood between him and the open, and he took them both like a bird; then the dust rose up in his wake and the Bat Wing outfit stood goggle-eyed and blasphemous.

"W'y, the blankety-blank!" crooned Hardy Atkins.

"Too skeered to pitch!" lamented Buck.

"You hit 'im too hard!" shouted Happy Jack.

"But that feller kin ride!" put in Brigham stoutly.

"Aw, listen to the Mormon-faced dastard!" raved Hardy Atkins; and as the conversation rose mountain high, the white dresses up on the hill fluttered back inside the house. But when Bowles came riding back on Wa-ha-lote not even the outraged Hardy could deny that the Bat Wing had a new hand.

CHAPTER VI