Heart's Desire Part 23

"Along with oats and ostypathy, old Pinto he'd come out on the track that day just standin' on the edges of his feet, he was feelin' that fine. We put Jose Santa Maria Trujillo, one of our lightest boys, up on Pinto for to ride him. Now a Greaser ain't got no sense. It was that fool boy Jose that busted up modern science on the Bar T.

"I was tellin' you that there horse was ostypathed, so to speak, plumb to a razor edge, and I was sayin' that he went off on a even start.

Then what did he do? Run? No, he didn't _run_. He just sort of pa.s.sed _away_ from the place where he started at. Our Greaser, he sees the race is all over, and like any fool cow puncher, he must get frisky. Comin' down the homestretch, only needin' about one more jump--for it ain't above a quarter of a mile--Jose, he stands up in his stirrups and pulls off his hat, and just whangs old Pinto over the head with it, friendly like, to show him there ain't no coldness.

"We never did rightly know what happened at that time. The Greaser admits he may have busted off the fastenin' of that single blinder down Pinto's nose. Anyhow, Pinto runs a few short jumps, and then stops, lookin' troubled. The next minute he hides his face on the Greaser and there is a glimpse of bright, glad sunlight on the bottom of Jose's moccasins. Next minute after that Pinto is up in the grandstand among the ladies, and there he sits down in the lap of the Governor's wife, which was among them present.

"There was time, even then, to lead him down and over the line, but before we could think of that he falls to buckin' sincere and conscientious, up there among the benches, and if he didn't jar his osshus structure a heap _then_, it wasn't no fault of his'n. We all run up in front of the grandstand, and stood lookin' up at Pinto, and him the maddest, scaredest, cross-eyedest horse I ever did see in all my life. His single blinder was swingin' loose under his neck. His eyes was right mean and white, and the Mexican saints only knows which way he _was_ a-lookin'.

"So there we was," went on Curly, with another sigh, "all Socorro sayin' bright and cheerful things to the Bar T, and us plumb broke, and far, far from home.

"We roped Pinto, and led him home behind the wagon, forty miles over the sand, by the soft, silver light of the moon. There wasn't a horse or saddle left in our _rodeo_, and we had to ride on the grub wagon, which you know is a disgrace to any gentleman that wears spurs. Pinto, he was the gayest one in the lot. I reckon he allowed he'd been Queen of the May. Every time he saw a jack rabbit or a bunch of sage brush, he'd snort and take a _pasear_ sideways as far as the rope would let him go.

"'The patient seems to be still laborin' under great cerebral excitation,' says the Doc, which was likewise on the wagon. 'I ought to have had a year on him,' says he, despondent like.

"'Shut up,' says Tom Redmond to the Doc. 'I'd shoot up your own osshus structure plenty,' says he, 'if I hadn't bet my gun on that horse race.'

"Well, we got home, the wagon-load of us, in the mornin' sometime, every one of us ashamed to look the cook in the face, and hopin' the boss was away from home. But he wasn't. He looks at us, and says he;--

"'Is this a sheep outfit I see before me, or is it the remnants of the former cow camp on the Bar T?' He was right sarcastic. 'Doc,' says he, 'explain this here to me.' But the Doc, he couldn't. Says the boss to him at last, 'The _right_ time to do the explainin' is before the hoss race is over, and not after,' says he. 'That's the only kind of science that goes hereafter on the Bar T,' says he.

"I reckon the boss was feelin' a little riled, because he had two hundred on Pinto hisself. A cross-eyed horse sh.o.r.e can make a sight of trouble," Curly sighed in conclusion; "yet I bought Pinto for four dollars, and--sometimes, anyway--he's the best horse in my string down at Carrizosy, ain't he, Mac?"

In the thoughtful silence following this tale, Tom Osby knocked his pipe reflectively against a cedar log. "That's the way with the railroad," he said. "It's goin' to come in herewith one eye on the gold mines and the other on the town--and there won't be no blind-bridle up in front of old Mr. Ingine, neither. If we got as much sense as the Bar T feller, we'll do our explainin' before, and not after the hoss race is over. Before I leave for Vegas, I want to see one of you ostypothetic lawyers about that there railroad outfit."

CHAPTER XVI

THE PARt.i.tION OF HEARTS DESIRE

_Concerning Real Estate, Love, Friendship, and Other Good and Valuable Considerations_

"You see, it's just this-a-way," began Tom Osby, the morning after Curly's osteopathic horse saga; "I've got to go on up to Vegas after a load of stuff, and I'll be gone a couple of weeks. Now, you know, from what we heard down at Sky Top about this railroad, a heap of things can happen in two weeks. Them fellers ain't showin' their hands any, but for all we know their ingineers may come in any day, and start in to doin'

things."

"They've got to make arrangements first," replied Dan Anderson.

"That's all right; and so ought we to make arrangements. We seen this place first. Now, Dan--" and he extended a gnarled and hairy hand--"you've always done like you said you would. You took care of me down there to Sky Top. I want you to keep on a-takin' care of me, whether I'm here or not. Now, there's my house and yard, right at the head of the canon, where they've got to come if they get in. That little old place, and my little old team, is about all I've got in the world.

If old Mr. Railroad comes up this _arroyo_, what happens to me? You tell 'em to go somewheres else, because I seen this place first, and I like it. Ain't that the law in this country? Ain't it _always_ been the law?"

Dan Anderson nodded. He held out his hand to Tom Osby and looked him straight in the eye. "I'll take care of you, Tom," he promised.

"Then that'll be about all," said Tom; "giddup, boys!"

In some way news of the early advent of the railroad had gotten about in Heart's Desire, and Dan Anderson found talk of it on every tongue, talk very similar to that of Tom Osby. Uncle Jim Brothers, owner of the one-story hotel and restaurant, the father and the feeder of all Heart's Desire when the latter was in financial stress, was the next to come to him; and Uncle Jim was grave of face.

"See here, man," said he, "how about this here new railroad? Do we want it, or _do_ we? Seems to me like we always got along here pretty well the way things was."

Dan Anderson nodded again. Uncle Jim shifted from one large foot to the other, and thrust a great hand into the pocket of one trouser leg.

"All I was going to say to you, Dan," he went on, "is, if it comes to takin' any sides, we all know which side you're on. You're with _us_.

Now, there's my place down there, where you've et many a time with the rest of the boys. You've helped me build the tables in the dining room--done a lot of things which makes me feel obliged to you." (Ah!

lovable liar, Uncle Jim, who could feed a man broke and hungry, and still let him feel that the operation was a favor to the feeder!) "Now, I just wanted to say, Dan, I was sure, in case any railroad ever did come cavortin' around here, you'd sort of look after the old place. Will you do that?"

"Of course he will," broke in Doc Tomlinson, who had strolled down the street and overheard the conversation. "Dan Anderson, he's our lawyer.

We've got him retained permanent, ain't we, Dan? Now, there's my old drug store--ain't much in it, but it's where I settled when I first driv into the valley, and I like the place. Ain't no railroad going to boost me out without a sc.r.a.p."

Dan Anderson turned away, sick at heart. For three days he kept to his cabin on the far side of the _arroyo_.

But if hesitation sat on the soul of any man of the community, if doubt or questionings hara.s.sed the minds of any, there was no uncertainty on the part of the management of the railroad, whose coming was causing this uneasiness. One day Dan Anderson was startled to hear a knock at his door, and to see the dusty figure of Porter Barkley, general counsel of the A. P. and S. E., just from a long buckboard ride from the head of the rails. With him came Grayson, chief engineer. Dan Anderson invited them in.

"Well, Mr. Anderson," said Barkley, "here we are, close after you. We're following up the right-of-way matters sharp and hard now. We can't hold back our graders, and before the line gets abreast of this canon, we've got to know what we can do here. Now, what can you tell us by this time?"

"I can tell you, as I said, the status of every town lot and every mining claim in this valley," replied Dan Anderson. "It's all simple so far as that is concerned."

"How about that town site? Grayson, here, is ready to go ahead with the new plat. If you never had any town site filed, how were real-estate transfers made?"

"There never were any transfers made. There has not been a town lot sold in ten years."

"Real estate just a little dull?" laughed Barkley, sarcastically.

"We hadn't noticed it," said Dan Anderson, simply.

"But how about your courts? Next thing you'll be telling me there wasn't any court."

"There never was, except when we acquitted a man for shooting a pig. I was his counsel, by the way."

"Nor any town election?"

"Why should there be?"

"No government--no nothing? for five years?"

"Over twelve years altogether, to be exact. I'm rather a newcomer myself."

"No organization--no government--" Barkley summed it up. "Good G.o.d!

what kind of a place is this?"

"It's Heart's Desire," said Dan Anderson. No man of that valley was ever able to say more, or indeed thought it needful to say more.

Porter Barkley gave a contemptuous whistle, as he turned on his heel, hands in pockets, his bulky form filling the doorway as he looked out.

"So you were a lawyer here," he said. "You must have had rather more leisure than law practice, I should think."

"It left me all the more time for my reading," said Dan Anderson, gravely. "You've no idea how much a law practice interferes with one's legal studies." Barkley looked at him, but could discover no sign of levity.

"Well, there is one thing mighty sure," said he, shutting his heavy jaws tight; "this valley is, or was, open to settlement under the United States land laws."