Partners of Chance Part 12

Bartley filled the canteen and sc.r.a.ped dirt over the fire. Cheyenne took a last look around, and turned toward the south.

"You didn't say nothin' about headin' back to Antelope," said Cheyenne.

"Why, no. I started out to visit Senator Brown's ranch."

Cheyenne laughed. "Well, you're out to see the country, anyhow. We'll see lots, to-day."

Once more upon the road Cheyenne's manner changed. He seemed to ignore the fact that he was afoot, in country where there was little prospect of getting a lift from a pa.s.sing rancher or freighter. And he said nothing about his horses, Filaree and Joshua, although Bartley knew that their loss must have hit him hard.

A mile down the road, and Cheyenne was singing his trail song, bow-legging ahead as though he were entirely alone and indifferent to the journey:

Seems like I don't git anywhere: Git along, cayuse, git along!

But I'm leavin' here and I'm goin' there, Git along, cayuse, git along--

He stopped suddenly, pulled his faded black Stetson over one eye, and then stepped out again, singing on:

They ain't no water and they ain't no shade: They ain't no beer or lemonade, But I reckon most like we'll make the grade Git along, cayuse, git along.

"That's the stuff!" laughed Bartley. "A stanza or two of that every few miles, and we'll make the grade all right. That last was improvised, wasn't it?"

"Nope. Just naturalized. I make 'em up when I'm ridin' along, to kind of fit into the scenery. Impervisin' gets my wind."

"Well, if you are singing when we finish, you're a wonder," stated Bartley.

"Oh, I'm a wonder, all right! And mebby I don't feel like a plumb fool, footin' it into Steve's ranch with no hosses and no bed-roll and no reputation. And I sure lose mine this trip. Why, folks all over the country will josh me to death when they hear Panhandle Sears set me afoot on the big mesa. I reckon I'll have to kind of change my route till somethin' happens to make folks forget this here bobble."

Another five miles of hot and monotonous plodding, and Cheyenne stopped and sat down. He pulled off his boots.

Bartley offered the moccasins, but Cheyenne waved the offer aside.

"Just coolin' my feet," he explained. "It ain't so much the kind of boots, because these fit. It's scaldin' your feet that throws you."

They smoked and drank from the canteen. Five minutes' rest, and they were on the road again. The big mesa reached on and on toward the south, seemingly limitless, without sign of fence or civilization save for the narrow road that swung over each slight, rounded rise and ran away into the distance, narrowing to a gray line that disappeared in s.p.a.ce.

Occasionally singing, Cheyenne strode along, Bartley striding beside him.

"You got a stride like a unbroke yearlin'," said; Cheyenne, as Bartley unconsciously drew ahead.

Bartley stopped and turned into step as Cheyenne caught up. He held himself to a slower pace, realizing that, while his companion could have outridden him by days and miles, the other was not used to walking.

As they topped a low rise a coyote sprang up and floated away. Bartley flinched as Cheyenne whipped up his gun and fired. The coyote jack-knifed and lay still. Cheyenne punched the empty sh.e.l.l from his gun, slipped in a cartridge, and strode on.

"Pretty fast work," remarked Bartley.

"Huh! I just throwed down on him to see if I was gettin' slow."

"It seems to me that if I could shoot like that, I wouldn't let any man back me down," said Bartley.

"Mebby so. But you're wrong, old-timer. Bein' fast with a gun is just like advertisin' for the coroner. Me, I'm plumb peaceful."

A few miles farther along they nooned in the shade of a pinion. When they started down the road again, Bartley noticed that Cheyenne limped slightly. But Cheyenne still refused to put on the moccasins. Bartley argued that his own feet were getting tender. He was unaccustomed to moccasins. Cheyenne turned this argument aside by singing a stanza of his trail song.

Also, incidentally, Cheyenne had been keeping his eye on the horse-tracks; and just before they left the main road taking a short cut, he pointed to them. "There's Filaree's tracks, and there's Joshua's. Your hoss has been travelin' over here, on the edge. Them hoss-thieves figure to hit into the White Hills and cut down through the Apache forest, most like."

"Will they sell the horses?"

"Yes. Or trade 'em for whiskey. Panhandle's got friends up in them hills."

"How far is it to the ranch?" queried Bartley.

"We done reached her. We're on Steve's ranch, right now. It's about five miles from that first fence over there to his house, by trail. It's fifteen by road."

"Then here is where you take the moccasins."

"Nope. My feet are so swelled you couldn't start my boots with a fence stretcher. They's no use both of us gettin' cripped up."

Bartley's own feet ached from the constant bruising of pebbles.

Presently Cheyenne dropped back and asked Bartley to set the pace.

"I'll just tie to your shadow," said Cheyenne. "Keeps me interested.

When I'm drillin' along ahead I can't think of nothin' but my feet."

Because there was now no road and scarcely a trail, Bartley began to choose his footing, dodging the rougher places. The muscles of his calves ached under the unaccustomed strain of walking without heels.

Cheyenne dogged along behind, suffering keenly from blistered feet, but centering his attention on Bartley's bobbing shadow. They had made about two miles across country when the faint trail ran round a b.u.t.te and dipped into a shallow arroyo.

The arroyo deepened to a gulch, narrow and rocky. Up the gulch a few hundred yards they came suddenly upon a bunch of Hereford cattle headed by a magnificent bull. The trail ran in the bottom of the gulch. On either side the walls were steep and rocky. Angling junipers stuck out from the walls in occasional dots of green.

"That ole white-face sure looks hostile," Cheyenne remarked. "Git along, you ole Mormon; curl your tail and drift."

Cheyenne heaved a stone which took the bull fairly between the eyes. The bull shook his head and snapped his tail, but did not move. The cattle behind the bull stared blandly at the invaders of their domain. The bull, being an aristocrat, gave warning of his intent to charge by shaking his head and bellowing. Then he charged.

Cheyenne stooped for another stone, but Bartley had no intention of playing ping-pong with a roaring red avalanche. Bartley made for the side of the gulch and, catching hold of the bole of a juniper, drew himself up. Cheyenne stood to his guns, shied a third stone, scored a bull's-eye, and then decided to evacuate in favor of the enemy. His feet were sore, but he managed to keep a good three jumps ahead of the bull, up the precipitous bank of the gulch. There was no time to swing into the tree where Bartley had taken refuge, so Cheyenne backed into a shallow depression beneath the roots of the juniper.

The bull shook his head and b.u.t.ted at Cheyenne. Cheyenne slapped the bull's nose with his hat. The bull backed part-way down the grade, snapped his tail, and bellowed. Up the grade he charged again. He could not quite reach Cheyenne, who slapped at the bull with his hat and spake eloquently.

Bartley, clinging to his precarious perch, gazed down upon the scene, wondering if he had not better take a shot at the bull. "Shall I let him have it?" he queried.

"Have what?" came the m.u.f.fled voice of Cheyenne. "He's 'most got what he's after, right now."

"Shall I shoot him?"

"h.e.l.l, no! No use beefin' twelve hundred dollars' worth of meat. We don't need that much."

"Look out! He's coming again!" called Bartley.

Cheyenne had suddenly poked his head out of the shallow cave. The bull charged, backed down, and amused himself by tossing dirt over his shoulders and grumbling like distant thunder.