Partners of Chance Part 2

"It ain't our fault ma ain't goin' with us, is it?" he queried timidly.

Big Jim shrugged his shoulders.

"Say, dad, we're headed west. Thought you said we was goin' to Arizona?"

"We'll turn south, after a while."

Little Jim asked no more questions. His father knew everything--why they were going and where. Little Jim glanced back to where Smiler padded along, his tongue out and his eyes already rimmed with dust, for he would insist upon traveling tight to Lazy's heels.

Little Jim leaned back. "Stick it out, ole-timer! But don't you go to cuttin' dad's trail till he gets kind of used to seein' you around.

Sabe?"

Smiler grinned through a dust-begrimed countenance. He wagged his tail.

Little Jim plunked his horse in the ribs and drew up beside his father.

Little Jim felt big and important riding beside his dad. There had been some kind of trouble at home--and they were leaving it behind. It would be a long trail, and his father sure would need help.

Little Jim drew a deep breath. He wanted to express his unwavering loyalty to his father. He wanted to talk of his willingness to go anywhere and share any kind of luck. But his resolve to speak evaporated in a sigh of satisfaction. This was a real holiday, an adventure.

"Smiler's makin' it fine, dad."

But Big Jim did not seem to hear. He was gazing ahead, where in the distance loomed an approaching figure on horseback. Little Jim knew who it was, and was about to say so when his father checked him with a gesture. Little Jim saw his father shift his belt round so that his gun hung handy. He said nothing and showed by no other sign that he had recognized the approaching rider, who came on swiftly, his high-headed pinto fighting the bit.

Within twenty yards of them, the rider reined his horse to a walk.

Little Jim saw the two men eye each other closely. The man on the pinto rode past. Little Jim turned to his father.

"I guess Panhandle is goin' to town," said the boy, not knowing just what to say, yet feeling that the occasion called for some remark.

"Panhandle" Sears and his father knew each other. They had pa.s.sed on the road, neither speaking to the other. And Little Jim was not blind to the significant movement of shifting a belt that a gun might hang ready to hand.

Yet he soon forgot the incident in visioning the future. Arizona, Aunt Jane, and stingin' lizards!

Big Jim rode with head bowed. He was thinking of the man who had just pa.s.sed them. If it had not been for the boy, Big Jim and that man would have had it out, there on the road. And Jenny Hastings would have been the cause of their quarrel. "Panhandle" Sears had "kept company" with Jenny before she became Big Jim's wife. Now that she had left him--

Big Jim turned and gazed back along the road. A far-away cloud of dust rolled toward the distant town of Laramie.

CHAPTER III

A MINUTE TOO LATE

The Overland, westbound, was late. Nevertheless, it had to stop at Antelope, but it did so grudgingly and left with a snort of disdain for the cow-town of the high mesa. Curious-eyed tourists had a brief glimpse of a loading-chute, cattle-pens, a puncher or two, and an Indian freighter's wagon just pulling in from the s.p.a.ces, and accompanied by a plodding cavalcade of outriders on paint ponies.

Incidentally the westbound left one of those momentarily interested Easterners on the station platform, without baggage, sense of direction, or companion. He had stepped off the train to send a telegram to a friend in California. He discovered that he had left his address book in his grip. Meanwhile the train had moved forward some sixty yards, to take water. Returning for his address book, he boarded the wrong Pullman, realized his mistake, and hastened on through to his car. Out to the station again--delay in getting the attention of the telegraph operator, the wire finally written--and the Easterner heard the rumble of the train as it pulled out.

Even then he would have made it had it not been for a portly individual in shirt-sleeves who inadvertently blocked the doorway of the telegraph office. Bartley b.u.mped into this portly person, tried to squeeze past, did so, and promptly caromed off the station agent whom he met head on, halfway across the platform. Gazing at the departing train, Bartley reached in his pocket for a cigar which he lighted casually.

The portly individual touched him on the shoulder. "'Nother one, this afternoon."

"Thanks. But my baggage is on that one."

"You're lucky it ain't two sections behind, this time of year. Travel is heavy."

Bartley's quick glance took in the big man from his high-heeled boots to his black Stetson. A cattleman, evidently well to do, and quite evidently not fl.u.s.tered by the mishaps of other folks.

"There's a right comfortable little hotel, just over there," stated the cattleman. "Wishful runs her. It ain't a bad place to wait for your train."

Bartley smiled in spite of his irritation.

The cattleman's eyes twinkled. "You'll be sending a wire to have 'em take care of your war bag. Well, come on in and send her. You can catch Number Eight about Winslow."

The cattleman forged ahead, and in the telegraph office, got the immediate attention of the operator, who took Bartley's message.

The cattleman paid for it. "'Tain't the first time my size has cost me money," he said, as Bartley protested. "Now, let's go over and get another cigar. Then we can mill around and see Wishful. You'll like Wishful. He's different."

They strode down the street and stopped in at a saloon where the cattleman called for cigars. Bartley noticed that the proprietor of the place addressed the big cattleman as "Senator."

"This here is a dry climate, and a cigar burns up right quick, if you don't moisten it a little," said the cattleman. "I 'most always moisten mine."

Bartley grinned. "I think the occasion calls for it, Senator."

"Oh, shucks! Just call me Steve--Steve Brown. And just give us a little Green River Tom."

A few minutes later Bartley and his stout companion were seated on the veranda of the hotel, gazing out across the mesas. They were both comfortable, and quite content to watch the folk go past, out there in the heat. Bartley wondered if the t.i.tle "Senator" were a nickname, or if the portly gentleman placidly smoking his cigar and gazing into s.p.a.ce was really a politician.

A dusty cow-puncher drifted past the hotel, waving his hand to the Senator, who replied genially. A little later a Navajo buck rode up on a quick-stepping pony. He grunted a salutation and said something in his native tongue. The Senator replied in kind. Bartley was interested.

Presently the Navajo dug his heels into his pony's ribs, and clattered up the road.

The Senator turned to Bartley. "Politics and cattle," he said, smiling.

Having learned the Senator's vocation, Bartley gave his own as briefly.

The Senator nodded.

"It is as obvious as all that, then?" queried Bartley.

"I wouldn't say that," stated the Senator carefully. "But after you b.u.mped into me, and then stepped into the agent, and then turned around and took in my scenery, noticin' the set of my legs, I says to myself, 'painter-man or writer.' It was kind of in your eye. I figured you wa'n't no painter-man when you looked at the oil paintin' over the bar.

"A painter-man would 'a' looked sad or said somethin', for that there paintin' is the most gosh-awful picture of what a puncher might look like after a cyclone had hit him. I took a painter-man in there once, to get a drink. He took one look at that picture, and then he says, kind of sorrowful: 'Is this the only place in town where they serve liquor?' I told him it was. 'Let's go over and tackle the pump,' he says. But we had our drink. I told him just to turn his back on that picture when he took his."

"I might be anything but a writer," said Bartley.

"That's correct. But you ain't."

"You hit the nail on the head. However, I can't just follow your line of reasoning it out."