The Freebooters of the Wilderness Part 12

"Not for Moyese," smiled the handy man sleepily, "and say, if I were you, I'd do one of two things, get rid of my conscience or get a tonic for my nerves."

The telephone rang. The news-man ran to the receiver and a moment later slammed it back on the hook.

"Old frump, giving namby pamby talks on woman's influence in politics without votes." The news editor spat aimlessly.

Bat tapped the story of the Rim Rocks with his pencil. "Well," he asked.

"We'll give this flare."

The news man put heavy underscores in blue beneath the words TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD, BY THE VALLEY CATTLE a.s.sOCIATION FOR PROOF OF THE PERPETRATORS OF LAST NIGHT'S VILE CRIME.

"We'll put this in red! G.o.d! The Senator is an artist! I like having to lick the hand that leashes me."

"And feeds you, eh?" added Bat.

Beneath the flare heading followed a statement of facts (more or less) to the effect that in an altercation between the drovers of some outside cattlemen and the herders belonging to the MacDonald ranch, the sheep herd had been hustled--("I like your alliterations, Bat, it gives flavor of quality," commented the news-man with a snap of his black eyes,) too close to the edge of the Rim Rocks with the unintended and tragical result that several hundred sheep had been shoved over the battlements. ("What I like specially is what you don't give,"

commented the news-man.)

There was not a word about broken backs and slashed lambs and disemboweled ewes; nor of what had been found on the Upper Mesas. As a sort of addendum it was stated that a boy belonging to the Mission school had lost his life in the melee.

"Anyway, we're in style! Way to tell a thing now adays is to turn all around it, and not tell anything at all. Auto suggestion, eh, Bat?"

Bat's fat cheeks blew up in the explosion of a bursting paper bag.

"You bet it's auto all right. If you'd heard the old man talking all the way down on the iniquity of the thing: he kept it going harder than the buzz wagon."

"Better inform a breathlessly eager public that he's gone to Washington?"

"Here, I've got that, too! He dictated that straight, 'for the express purpose of taking up the whole question of eliminating the grazing areas from the National Forests when it will be possible for the State authorities to protect the live stock interests,'" Bat handed across the second item.

"What in thunder have the National Forests to do with the Rim Rock ma.s.sacre?" The newsman looked up through his gla.s.ses.

"And who in thunder is going to ask that?"

Bat tapped the last item sharply with his pencil. "They'll read _that_ and they'll read the other, and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts nine men out of ten will begin jawing and spouting and arguing that if there were _no_ National Forests, there would be no Range Wars. If they draw a false impression, that's the public's look out. If we weren't dealing with damphools, we couldn't fool 'em."

"But it didn't happen on the National Forests."

"But it's only the tenth man who will stop to think that out. You put in one of those big middle page cartoons--National Forests with the Federal sign board, KEEP OFF, the sheep being ma.s.sacred inside the sign board and the State sheriff unable to go in and stop it--"

"But you didn't say ma.s.sacred! You said they accidently went over the edge."

"But it's only the tenth man will stop to think that. You run the cartoon, see?" said Bat, and, though he asked it as a question, if sounded final. The news-man went tearing back to the front editorial rooms. Bat went whistling down stairs, two steps at a bounce. At the half-way landing, he paused.

"Say," he yelled up, "you can use the same old cartoon; 'Keep Off the Gra.s.s,' you know."

"Eh?--right," crossly from the front room.

"And say?"

The news-man came out and leaned over the upper railing.

"Don't forget to take that tonic for your nerves."

The news-man told Bat to go any where he pleased; but it was all in the day's work with Mr. Bat Brydges. He didn't go. The handy man went straight across to the paper in opposition. The news-man went back to the front room and stood thinking. He didn't curse Bat nor emit fumes of the sulphurous place to which he had invited Brydges. He was contemplating what he called his "kids"; and he was figuring the next payment due on the Smelter City lots in which he had been speculating.

Evidently, these were the news-man's tonic; for he at once did what he described as "bucking it" and called down the speaking tube for the press man to put on the old cartoon.

The opposition paper required more finesse on the part of the handy man. Bat strolled as if it were a matter of habit into the telegraph editor's room, where he lolled back in one of the two empty chairs. It was still early and the wires were silent. Bat laid one cigar at the editor's place and took a fresh one for himself.

"Hullo, Bat," bubbled the telegraph man, dashing from the composing room in his shirt sleeves, "We've just been having a yell of an argument about the elements of success." He seated himself and whipped out a match to light the cigar. Bat was clicking his cigar case open and shut. This editor was all nerves too. Nerves seemed to go with the job; but these nerves were not jangled. He leaned back in his swing chair with one boot against the desk. "What makes a man successful, anyway? It isn't ability. Your news-man across the way could buy our office out with brains; but gee whitaker, he's worse than a dose of bitters! Now take your Senator, he hasn't either the education or the brains of lots of our cub reporters, here!" He paused nibbling his cigar end. "Yet, he's successful. We aren't, except in a sort of doggon-hack-horse way. You're next to the old man, Bat, what do you say makes him successful?"

Bat clicked the cigar case shut and put it in his pocket.

"Two things: he's a specialist; he delivers the goods no other man can deliver; and he doesn't fool any time away by bucking into a buzz saw, fighting windmills and that sort of thing, way you fellows 'agin the Government' do."

The telegraph man removed his cigar.

"What do you mean by 'delivers the goods no other man can deliver'? Do you mean the pork barrel?"

"No," said Bat, "I don't, though the pork barrel is a d--ee--d essential part of the game. Here's what I mean; when you came to this Valley, there was nothing doing. We had mines; but we hadn't a smelter! Well, Senator got the c.o.king coal for a smelting site and the big developers came in. Other men couldn't, wouldn't or didn't dare to do it! He did it. He delivered the goods and got the big fellows interested."

"He stole 'em, those coal lands. He jugged 'em thro' Land Office records with false entries." The telegraph man had lowered his voice.

"We don't call 'em stolen when it's been the making of the Valley."

"No, because the Smelter is a sacred cow mustn't be touched for the sake of the grease."

"Then, there was nothing doing in lumber; big fellows wouldn't come in and develop. Well, Moyese got 'em the timber tracts for a song. Other men couldn't, wouldn't or didn't dare. He delivered the goods--"

"The courage of the highwayman," commented the wire editor with a puff.

"We don't call it that when it helps the Valley," corrected the handy man.

"No, it's another sacred bovine; mustn't be touched for fear of the axle grease. See? I've got a list of 'em--public lands, through freights, water power, smelter, lumber deals," the telegraph man opened his table drawer and held out a scrawled list. "If you call that delivering the goods, I call it filling the barrel. What's the other factor for success?"

"Not bucking into a buzz saw. The world is mostly made of barkers and builders. You fellows spend all the time barking. Then you wonder there's nothing to show in the way of a building."

The telegraph wires began to click and the girl operator came in with some tissue sheets.

"Fight in Frisco--that goes," commented the telegraph editor dashing in the "ands" and "buts" and the punctuation. He stuck the slip on the printer's hook. "Wedding in Newport--"

"That goes," laughed the handy man, "There's no sacred cow about that."

The telegraph man wrote headings for the dispatches and stuck them on the hook for the printer's boy.

"Speaking of sacred cows, it isn't exactly cows, but it's in the stock line all right--what do you know about that business last night up on Rim Rocks? Stage driver has been blazing it all round town--"

"Stage driver's a liar," emphatically declared Brydges.

"Been trying to get the news for an hour; the wires are cut. Can't get 'em by phone. Think I'll send a man up to-night with a photographer."