The Long Dim Trail Part 2

The cattle that Powell and Traynor had watched starting from the Diamond H, const.i.tuted the first shipment of the season, contracted to an Eastern buyer. Official inspection by the Live Stock Sanitary Board was exacted, not only regarding the health of shipped cattle, but also to protect cattlemen from rustlers on the miles of open range.

After reaching Willc.o.x, the boys of the Diamond H drove the herd into the shipping pens beside the railroad track, locked the gates and turned with joyous expectation toward the main street of town. Limber parted from the others a short distance from the corrals.

"I'll tell the inspector we'll be ready tomorrow mornin' soon as the cars get in," he said, and without waiting reply rode toward the part of town where the more pretentious houses were bunched.

Like schoolboys out for a holiday, Bronco, Holy and Roarer raced their ponies to the Cowboys' Rest Corral. Here they were greeted vociferously by Buckboard Bill, who had retired from driving a skeleton stage and established the only place where horses or vehicles might be hired.

A few minutes elapsed before the three cowpunchers, afoot, made their way along the street. Ponies standing with dangling reins and hoofs buried fetlock deep in the fine, white alkali sand in front of the stores, told that many other cowpunchers from other ranches were in town. The Diamond H boys quickly identified the owner of each pony by its brand.

A row of irregular buildings, consisting of three stores, a Chinese restaurant, several saloons and a hotel, formed the princ.i.p.al street of Willc.o.x. Facing the stores across the dusty expanse, lay the Southern Pacific depot which was the heart of the town, while radiating from it east and west, like great arteries, ran the steel tracks of the railroad. Pack burros, loaded with miners' supplies, shuffled out on the road to Dos Cabezas. Many of these tiny animals were animated woodpiles--only legs and wagging ears visible from beneath a canopy of split wood destined for a camp where fuel was not procurable, otherwise.

The only break in the grey monotone of the landscape was the few cottonwood trees, planted by optimistic souls around their dwelling places.

It was a typical frontier town of three hundred people, two-thirds of whom were Mexicans speaking no English. If, by chance, a stranger alighted from the "pa.s.senger" train, the arrival of which was the most important event of each day, the town, like a naughty child with dirty face and torn clothes, looked the new-comer over critically. If he met the inspection squarely, it held out a friendly hand, and as long as he "played fair" that hand was ready to fight for him and his.

The boys from the Diamond H sauntered leisurely along the street, exchanging greetings with those they knew, until, under their usual pretext of expecting mail, they reached the combination store and post-office. It was an important duty to ascertain beyond doubt whether any letters were waiting to be claimed by Peter N. Hewland, d.i.c.k Reynolds and Henry Jackson, who were thus able to keep their legal identification. At all other times they were known as Bronco Pete, Holy d.i.c.k, whose vocabulary of cuss-words held the Arizona record, and h.e.l.l-roarer Jack, with a gentle falsetto voice which under stress of emotion became a tiny squeak. Convenience had curtailed these names to Bronc, Holy and Roarer.

Having digested the information that no mail awaited them, they entered into conversation. One could learn the news of territory, county and nation in the post-office, besides ascertaining what outfits were in town. Additional attractions were found in the posters to be read, notices of round-up work, advertis.e.m.e.nts of stolen horses or stray cattle.

It was while browsing on such literature that Bronco halted with mouth half-open and disbelieving eyes. He read the hand-written notice deliberately to the end twice before he turned to where Roarer and Holy were inspecting silver-mounted spurs--which they did not need, but intended to buy because they had to spend their money someway.

"Say, boys, thar's goin' to be a ice-cream festival tonight!"

"Shucks!" squeaked Roarer. "Try something else, Bronc. You all know that thar ain't no ice any nearer than Tucson. And n.o.body's fool enough to send ninety miles and pay cut-throat rates for ice just to make ice-cream, except a regular ijit."

The grin on Roarer's face and the faces of other by-standers recalled Bronco's exploit of ordering ice from Tucson, and reaching the Diamond H with nothing but a wet blanket in the wagon.

Succ.u.mbing to the alluring display in a mail order catalogue, Bronco had bought an ice-cream freezer, declaring he was going to get filled up on that delicacy for once in his life--if it took three months' pay. The episode became historic, and the freezer kindling wood.

"If you don't believe me," challenged Bronco, "come and see for yourself! What's more, it says here, it's goin' to be free with cake throwed in," he finished triumphantly.

Holy edged beside Bronco and peered over his shoulder. "Derned if it ain't so," he acknowledged at last. "But, mebbe that air paper's lyin'."

"What do you think of that?" ruminated Bronco, his mouth watering in antic.i.p.ation. "Ice-cream--and cake throwed in free gratis for nothin'.

Looks like some one's struck it rich--turnin' all that loose on the range for everybody to corral."

"I don't believe it," gloomily a.s.serted Holy, who had acted as escort for Bronco and the ice that failed. "You can't get ice from Tucson so's thar'd be anything left unless you order a whole carload at onct."

"Well," retorted Bronco in self-defence, "it depends on who's cartin'

the ice. You would keep on cussin' all the way to the ranch that time, Holy, an it's no wonder the ice was all melted up. But, this yer ice is goin' to be in the church and won't have its const.i.tution tried so hard."

Holy and Roarer looked at each other uncertainly. They hungered for that ice-cream and cake; but the necessity of treading consecrated board floors made the matter serious.

"I wonder if you've got to have 'em deal you a ticket if you don't belong in the pasture?" speculated Bronco, unable to tear himself from the vicinity of the poster. "Say, Larry," he called to the store-keeper, "how about this here ice-scream layout? Is it a bluff, or sure enough free-for-all?"

"Sure enough," answered Larry. "There's a new minister come to town and the women-folks have pitched in and fixed this up so he can get acquainted with people. You boys had better take it in. Every one's going to be there. We're shutting up the stores at seven o'clock tonight, so everybody can go."

"Say, Larry, did they sure enough get the ice here all right?"

questioned Holy doubtfully.

"They sure did! And that ice-cream and cake is way up in G. Home-made, every bit of it. What's more, the ladies went to the saloon-keepers and got them all to promise to shut up the saloons from seven till eleven tonight. So every one's got to go to the Festival or else go home to bed."

"I guess we're headed for the ice-scream, boys;" announced Bronco, and the others nodded acquiescence.

They filed out of the store and, after registering on the empty page of the hotel book, received a key and mounted the protesting stairs that ascended outside the hotel to the upper rooms.

While they were engaged in splashing soapy water over faces and hands, brushing dusty coats and plastering down anarchistic locks, Limber joined them and was informed of the evening plans.

"Well, I'll see you over there," he promised. "I'm goin' to supper now.

Then I've got to have a talk with Paddy Lafferty and find out what he's holdin' his herd at."

He reached the door, paused and looked back quizzically. "I reckon you boys'll be all right tonight, seein' as how you'll all be in church. So long."

After supper the three cowboys joined a stream of people moving toward the church, where open doors emitted rays of welcoming light. It was a medley of humanity possible only in a frontier town. Women had resurrected dresses more or less old in style, from the depths of swaddling sheets necessary to keep them from the dust of sandstorms penetrating chests and trunks. Husbands, whose "best suits" smelled of camphor, helped shoo small girls in stiffly starched white dresses, tied with varied-coloured sashes, and boys who twisted and squirmed uneasily under the galling yoke of white collars and shirts.

Fortified with promises of ice-cream and cake, the youngsters were distributed on a double row of chairs back of the minister and facing the audience, where they had a full view of the other victims. Many miners had wandered into town for their usual Sat.u.r.day-night and Sunday recreation, only to face the unprecedented situation of the closed stores and saloons--learning that there was no "balm in Gilead" from seven till eleven, for the first time on record in the Territory, they headed voluntarily for the church. Mexicans, whose own Catholic church was only opened twice a year, when the Padre came to marry and baptize wholesale--and frequently married the parents when he baptized the infant--rubbed elbows with clerks from the stores, bartenders and prospectors.

Holy, Bronco and Roarer, with amiable, though uneasy grins, faced the pretty school-teacher, Miss Gordon, a recent importation from San Francisco. She smiled sweetly at them and held out a small, white hand, which Bronco took hold of as gingerly as though it were a hot branding-iron, and let it drop as quickly. Holy, not to be outdone, extended his own h.o.r.n.y hand, but Miss Gordon said, "I have to ask for your pistols, please, until you are ready to go. There are so many people here tonight we had to make this rule."

In consternation that was almost paralysis, they stared at her outstretched hand, then looked at her wheedling smile. Reluctantly, half-bewildered, each man slowly drew his beloved gun from the holster in which it reposed, and helpless, watched her add it to the stack on a table behind her. Then they looked at each other forlornly. Still under the influence of that dazzling smile, they made no resistance as Miss Gordon drove them forward. They were as embarra.s.sed as though stripped of more conventional apparel than six-shooters, but they hoped the contortions of their faces might be cla.s.sed as happy smiles when they saw they were expected to shake hands with the long, rigid line of the Committee of Ladies which flanked the minister.

As Limber entered the church, he saw his outfit run the gauntlet of introductions, then they turned precipitately with relieved countenances and slipped into chairs at the centre of the room. Bronco advised this location. "Ice-cream might give out if we get too fur back. Thar's a lot of people here tonight."

A program followed in which the school children sang a song, pitched in as many keys as there were voices. A recitation by a boy of fourteen, starting in a megaphone voice, and after the fifth line lapsing into a whisper, a gasp, silence--a bobbing head--and ending in hasty exit.

Next a five-year old carefully starched youngster galloped breathlessly without a pause through a couple of verses, exploiting her knowledge that she knew the audience would be surprised that "one my age should speak in public on the stage." The applause had hardly died when a buxom lady with white kid slippers three sizes too small, appropriated the piano. She arranged her toes on the pedals, then wiggled her feet until the heels slid out. An expression of beat.i.tude adorned her face, her chubby hands were lifted and came down on the tinkling keys.

The a.s.saulted, helpless piano responded with the familiar "Maiden's Prayer," while an apparition in a white lace curtain materialized at the back door of the room, flopping and twisting toward the spell-bound spectators. The number had been announced as an "Interpretative dance,"

and Holy whispered cautiously to Bronco, "Is it an Apache dance, or has she just tooken carbolic acid?"

"Search me," was the response. "Looks like a mixture of both of 'em."

The dancer was agile and angular. She had the distinction of being the only old maid in the county. Her bare, thin arms waved, gyrated, supplicated; her knees cracked audibly several times, but her mind was far away. She was mentally repeating the instructions she had studied so carefully from a book ent.i.tled, "The Art of Cla.s.sic Dancing without a Teacher." Then with a last squirm, a convulsive shudder, she flopped to the floor, and ended the agony with one or two feeble kicks.

"It was a fit!" decided Bronco. "But it's the wust one I ever seed anything have."

The last number on the program was a little, weazened man with brilliant red hair, lighter red beard, faded blue eyes, who had brought a small talking machine. With stupendous dignity he wound it up, then stood with a new record ready to immediately replace the one being scratched out by the needle. The pile of records was formidable and he was apparently determined to skip none, until the head committee lady gently, but firmly and diplomatically, came to the rescue.

He bowed his appreciation of the tumulutous applause, a.s.suming it was intended for him. It continued unabated. He opened his mouth wide, to express his gratification at the ovation accorded. The muscles of his face twitched, his eyes stared wildly and as the audience leaned forward anxiously, a terrific sneeze smote the air and a set of false teeth catapulted like a meteor in the midst of the audience.

A suppressed t.i.tter, a bobbing of bodies in the vicinity of the teeth, and then one of the children, groping on the floor, located the lost property and rose with a triumphant squeal.

"I got 'em!"

The red-haired individual grasped the rescued property with a smile that proved Nature may abhor a vacuum but sometimes permits it to exist. The owner of the touring teeth surveyed them, then nonchalantly popped them into their accustomed place before he gathered up his records, machine, and resumed his seat in the front row of the audience, which directed its attention to the minister.

He was a tall, raw-boned man in long-tailed coat and the white muslin tie needed a woman's touch, for one end had escaped and hung like the tail of a kite, as he advanced to the table on which stood a white pitcher, decorated with brilliantly coloured flowers; a part of the china set loaned by one of the ladies, whose artistic soul scorned such trifles as proportion, perspective or the mere "holding the mirror up to Nature."

In a few words the minister expressed his delight at this large gathering when he had expected a small one, and thanked the dear ladies who had arranged the beautiful program. Then he beamed graciously at the wiggling children.