The Eagle's Heart Part 30

"good fellow when sober," etc. Sometimes, irritated and reckless, he lived up to his sinister reputation, and when some Eastern gentleman in brown corduroy timidly approached to say, "Fine weather," Mose turned upon him a baleful glare under which the questioner shriveled, to the delight of the driver, who vastly admired the new guard.

At times he was unnecessarily savage. Well-meaning men who knew nothing about him, except that he was a guard, were rebuffed in quite the same way. He was indeed becoming self-conscious, as if on exhibition, somehow--and this feeling deepened as the days pa.s.sed, for nothing happened. No lurking forms showed in the shadow of the pines. No voice called "Halt!" It became more and more like a stage play.

He was much disturbed by Jack's letter which was waiting for him one night when he returned to Wagon Wheel.

"DEAR HARRY: I went up to see Mary a few weeks ago and found she had gone to Chicago. Her father died over a year ago and she decided soon after to go to the city and go on with her music. She's in some conservatory there. I don't know which one. I tried hard to keep her on my own account but she wouldn't listen to me. Well, yes, she listened but she shook her head. She dropped King soon after your visit--whether you had anything to do with that or not I don't know--I think you did, but as you didn't write she gave you up as a bad job. She always used to talk of you and wonder where you were, and every time I called she used to sing If I Were a Voice. She never _said_ she was singing it for you, but there were tears in her eyes--and in mine, too, old man. You oughtn't to be throwing yourself away in that wild, G.o.d-forsaken country. We discussed you most of the time. Once in a while she'd see a little note in the paper about you, and cut it out and send it to me. I did the same. We heard of you at Flagstaff, Arizona. Then that row you had with the Mormons was the next we knew, but we couldn't write. She said it was pretty tough to hear of you only in some sc.r.a.pe, but I told her your side hadn't been heard from and that gave her a lot of comfort. The set-to you had about the Indians' right to hunt pleased us both. That was a straight case. She said it was like a knight of the olden time.

"She was uneasy about you, and once she said, 'I wish I could reach him. That rough life terrifies me. He's in constant danger.' I think she was afraid you'd take to drinking, and I own up, old man, that worries _me_. If you only had somebody to look after you--somebody to work for--like I have. I'm going to be married in September. You know her--only she was a little girl when you lived here. Her name is Lily Blanchard.

"I wish I could help you about Mary. I'm going to write to one or two parties who may know her address. If she's in Chicago you could visit her without any trouble. They wouldn't get on to you there at all. If you go, be sure and come this way. Your father went to Denver from here--have you heard from him?"

There was deep commotion in the trailer's brain that night. The hope he had was too sacredly sweet to put into words--the hope that she still thought of him and longed for him. If Jack were right, then she had waited and watched for him through all those years of wandering, while he, bitter and unrelenting, and believing that she was King's wife, had refused to listen for her voice on Sunday evenings. If she had kept her promise, then on the trail, in canons dark and deathly still, on the moonlit sand of the Painted Desert, on the high divides of the Needle Range, her thought had been winged toward him in song--and he had not listened.

His thought turned now, for the first time, toward the great city, which was to him a savage jungle of unknown things, a web of wire, a maze of streets, a swirling flood of human beings, of interest now merely and solely because Mary had gone to live therein. "I'm due to make another trip East," he said to himself with a grim straightening of the lips.

It was mighty serious business. To take Kintuck and hit the trail for the Kalispels over a thousand miles of mountain and plain, was simple, but to thrust himself amid the mad rush of a great city made his bold heart quail. Money was a minor consideration in the hills, but in the city it was a matter of life and death. Money he must now have, and as he could not borrow or steal it, it must be earned. In a month his wages would amount to one hundred dollars, but that was too slow. He saw no other way, however, so set his teeth and prepared to go on with the "fool business" of guarding the treasure wagon of the Express Company.

His mind reverted often to the cowboy tournament which was about to come off, after hanging fire for a month, during which Gra.s.si wrestled with the problem of how to hold a bullfight in opposition to the laws of the State. "If I could whirl in and catch one of those purses," thought Mose, "I could leave at the end of August. If I don't I must hang on till the first of October."

He determined to enter for the roping contest and for the cowboy race and the revolver practice. Marshal Haney was delighted. "I'll attend to the business, but the entrance fees will be about twenty dollars."

This staggered Mose. It meant an expenditure of nearly one fourth his month's pay in entrance fees, not to speak of the expense of keeping Kintuck, for the old horse had to go into training and be grain-fed as well. However, he was too confident of winning to hesitate. He drew on his wages, and took a day off to fetch Kintuck, whom he found fat and hearty and very dirty.

The boys at the Reynolds ranch were willing to bet on Mose, and every soul determined to be there. Cora said quietly: "I know you'll win."

"Well, I don't expect to sweep the board, but I'll get a lunch while the rest are getting a full meal," he replied, and returned to his duties.

The weather did not change for the tournament. Each morning the sun arose flashing with white, undimmed fire. At ten o'clock great dazzling white clouds developed from hidden places behind huge peaks, and as they expanded each let fall a veil of shimmering white storms that were hail on the heights and sleet on the paths in the valleys. These clouds pa.s.sed swiftly, the sun came out, the dandelions shone vividly through their coverlet of snow, the eaves dripped, the air was like March, and the sunsets like November.

Naturally, Sunday was the day fixed upon for the tournament, and early on that day miners in clean check shirts and bright new blue overalls began to stream away up the road which led to the race track, some two miles away, on the only level ground for a hundred miles. Swift horses. .h.i.tched to light open buggies whirled along, loaded down with men.

Hors.e.m.e.n galloped down the slopes in squadrons--and such hors.e.m.e.n!--cowboys from "Lost Park" and "the Animas." Prospectors like Casey and Kelly who were quite as much at home on a horse as with a pick in a ditch, and men like Marshal Haney and Gra.s.si, who were all-round plainsmen, and by that same token born hors.e.m.e.n. Haney and Kelly rode with Reynolds and Mose, while Cora and Mrs. Reynolds followed in a rusty buggy drawn by a fleabitten gray cow pony, sedate with age.

Kintuck was as alert as a four-year-old. His rest had filled him to bursting with ambition to do and to serve. His muscles played under his shining skin like those of a trained athlete. Obedient to the lightest touch or word of his master, with ears in restless motion, he curvetted like a racer under the wire.

"Wouldn't know that horse was twelve years old, would you, gentlemen?"

said Reynolds. "Well, so he is, and he has covered fifteen thousand miles o' trail."

Mose was at his best. With vivid tie flowing from the collar of his blue shirt, with a new hat properly crushed in on the crown in four places, with shining revolver at his hip, and his rope coiled at his right knee, he sat his splendid horse, haughty and impa.s.sive of countenance, responding to the greetings of the crowd only with a slight nod or a wave of the hand.

It seemed to him that the population of the whole State--at least its men--was a.s.sembled within the big stockade. There were a few women--just enough to add decorum to the crowd. They were for the most part the wives or sisters or sweethearts of those who were to contest for prizes, but as Mose rode around the course he pa.s.sed "the princess" sitting in her shining barouche and waving a handkerchief. He pretended not to see her, though it gave him pleasure to think that the most brilliantly-dressed woman on the grounds took such interest in him.

Another man would have ridden up to her carriage, but Mose kept on steadily to the judge's stand, where he found a group of cowboys discussing the programme with Haney, the marshal of the day.

Mose already knew his dangerous rival--a powerful and handsome fellow called Denver Dan, whose face was not unlike his own. His nose was straight and strong, his chin finely modeled, and his head graceful, but he was heavier, and a persistent flush on his nose and in his eyelids betrayed the effects of liquor. His hands were small and graceful and he wore his hat with a certain attractive insolence, but his mouth was cruel and his eyes menacing. When in liquor he was known to be ferocious. He was mounted on a superbly pointed grade broncho, and all his hangings were of costly Mexican workmanship and betrayed use.

"The first thing is a 'packing contest,'" read Haney.

"Oh, to h----l with that, I'm no packer," growled Dan.

"I try that," said Mose; "I let nothing get away to-day."

"Entrance fee one dollar."

"Here you are." Mose tossed a dollar.

"Then 'roping and holding contest.'"

"Now you're talking my business," exclaimed Dan.

"There are others," said Mose.

Dan turned a contemptuous look on the speaker--but changed his expression as he met Mose's eyes.

"Howdy, Mose?"

"So's to sit a horse," Mose replied in a tone which cut. He was not used to being patronized by men of Dan's set.

The crowd perceived the growing rivalry between the two men and winked joyously at each other.

At last all was arranged. The spectators were a.s.sembled on the rude seats. The wind, sweet, clear, and cool, came over the smooth gra.s.sy slopes to the west, while to the east, gorgeous as sunlit marble, rose the great snowy peaks with huge c.u.mulus clouds--apparently standing on edge--peeping over their shoulders from behind. Mose observed them and mentally calculated that it would not shower till three in the afternoon.

In the track before the judge's stand six piles of "truck," each pile precisely like the others, lay in a row. Each consisted of a sack of flour, a bundle of bacon, a bag of beans, a box, a camp stove, a pick, a shovel, and a tent. These were to be packed, covered with a mantle, and caught by "the diamond hitch."

Mose laid aside hat and coat, and as the six pack horses approached, seized the one intended for him. Catching the saddle blanket up by the corners, he shook it straight, folded it once, twice--and threw it to the horse. The sawbuck followed it, the cinch flying high so that it should go clear. A tug, a grunt from the horse, and the saddle was on.

Unwinding the sling ropes, he made his loops, and end-packed the box.

Against it he put both flour and beans. Folding the tent square he laid it between. On this he set the stove, and packing the smaller bags around it, threw on the mantle. As he laid the hitch and began to go around the pack, the crowd began to cheer:

"Go it, Mose!"

"He's been there before."

"Well, I guess," said another.

Mose set his foot to the pack and "pinched" the hitch in front. Nothing remained now but the pick, shovel, and coffee can. The tools he crowded under the ropes on either side, tied the cans under the pack at the back and called Kintuck, "Come on, boy." The old horse with shining eyes drew near. Catching his mane, Mose swung to the saddle, Kintuck nipped the laden cayuse, and they were off while the next best man was still worrying over the hitch.

"Nine dollars to the good on that transaction," muttered Mose, as the marshal handed him a ten dollar gold piece.

"The next exercise on the programme," announced Haney, "will be the roping contest. The crowd will please be as quiet as possible while this is going on. Bring on your cows."

Down the track in a cloud of dust came a bunch of cattle of all shapes and sizes. They came snuffing and bawling, urged on by a band of cowboys, while a cordon of older men down the track stopped and held them before the judge's stand.

"First exercise--'rope and hold,'" called the marshal. "Denver Dan comes first."

Dan spurred into the arena, his rope swinging gracefully in his supple up-raised wrist.

"Which one you want?" he asked.

"The line-back yearling," called Haney.

With careless cast Dan picked up both hind feet of the calf--his horse set his hoofs and held the bawling brute.