The Ridin' Kid from Powder River Part 15

Andy nodded sagely. "I tried him onct. So Bailey give you a job, eh?"

"Kind of a job. Mostly peelin' potatoes and helpin' round the house.

Ma Bailey says I'm worth any two of the men helpin' round the house.

And I found out one thing--what Ma Bailey says round here goes."

"You bet! She's the boss. If Ma don't like a guy, he don't work long for the Concho. I recollect when Steve Gary quit over the T-Bar-T and come over here lookin' for a job. Ma she sized him up, but didn't say nothin' right away. But Gary he didn't stay long enough to git a saddle warm. Ma didn't like him, nohow. He sure was a top-hand--but that didn't help him none. He's over to the T-Bar-T now. Seen him the other day. He's got some kind of a drag there, for they took him back.

Folks says--say, what's bitin' you?"

"Nothin'. You said Gary?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I was jest thinkin'."

Young Andy dried his face on the community towel, emptied the basin with a flourish which drenched the pup and sent him yelping toward the house, attempted to shy the basin so that it would land right-side up on the bench--but the basin was wet and soapy and slipped. It sailed through the door of the bunk-house and caromed off Bill Haskins's head.

Andy saw what had happened and, seizing Pete's arm, rushed him across the clearing and into the house, where he grabbed Ma Bailey and kissed her heartily, scrambled backward as she pretended to threaten him with the mammoth coffee-pot, and sat down at the table with the remark that he was "powerful tired."

"You act like it," scoffed Mrs. Bailey.

Bill Haskins, with a face like black thunder, clumped in and asked Mrs.

Bailey if she had any "stickin'-plaster."

"Cut you, Bill?"

"Bad!" said Bill, exhibiting a cut above the ear--the result of Andy's basin-throwing.

"Oh, you go 'long!" said Mrs. Bailey, pushing him away. "Askin' for stickin'-plaster for a scratch like that!"

Bill Haskins growled and grumbled as he took his place at the table.

He kept shaking his head like a dog with a sore ear, vowing that if he found out "who thrun that basin" there would be an empty chair at the Concho board before many days had pa.s.sed.

Andy White glanced at Pete and snickered. Bill Haskins glowered and felt of his head. "Liked to skelp me," he a.s.serted. "Ma, I jest ask you what you would do now, if you was settin' peaceful in the bunk-house pawin' over your war-bag, lookin' for a clean shirt, and all of a sudden _whing_! along comes a warsh-basin and takes you right over the ear. Wouldn't you feel like killin' somebody?"

"Lookin' for a clean shirt!" whispered Andy to Pete. "Did you git that?"

Bill "got" it--and flushed amazingly. "I was meanin' a clean--clean dress, Mrs. Bailey. A clean dress or stockin's, mebby."

"Bill was lookin' for a clean dress," snickered Andy. Pete grinned.

"Bill, I reckon it ain't your ear that needs that sticking-plaster. A clean shirt, indeed! I'm surprised at you, William."

"Gee, Ma called him Willum!" whispered Andy. "Bill better fade."

The men tramped in, nodded to Mrs. Bailey, and sat down. Eating was a serious matter with them. They said little. It was toward the end of the meal, during a lull in the clatter of knives and forks, that Andy White suggested, _sotto voce_, but intended for the a.s.semblage, "That Bill always was scared of a wash-basin." This gentle innuendo was lost on the men, but Bill Haskins vowed mighty vengeance.

It was evident from the start that Pete and Andy would run in double harness. They were the youngsters of the outfit, liked each other, and as the months went by became known--Ma Bailey had read the book--as "The Heavenly Twins." Bailey asked his good wife why "heavenly." He averred that "twins was all right--but as for 'heavenly'--"

Mrs. Bailey chuckled. "I'm callin' 'em 'heavenly,' Jim, to kind of even up for what the boys call 'em. I don't use that kind of language."

Pete graduated from peeling potatoes and helping about the house to riding line with young Andy, until the fall round-up called for all hands, the loading of the chuck-wagon and a farewell to the lazy days at the home ranch. The air was keen with the tang of autumn. The hillside blue of spruce and pine was splashed here and there with the rich gold of the quaking asp. Far vistas grew clearer as the haze of summer heat waned and fled before the stealthy harbingers of winter.

In the lower levels of the distant desert, heat waves still pulsed above the grayish brown reaches of sand and brush--but the desert was fifty, sixty, eighty miles away, spoken of as "down there" by the riders of the high country. And Young Pete, detailed to help "gather"

in some of the most rugged timberland of the Blue, would not have changed places with any man. He had been allotted a string of ponies, placed under the supervision of an old hand, entered on the pay-roll at the nominal salary of thirty dollars a month, and turned out to do his share in the big round-up, wherein riders from the T-Bar-T, the Blue, the Eight-O-Eight, and the Concho rode with a loose rein and a quick spur, gathering and bunching the large herds over the high country.

There was a fly in Pete's coffee, however. Young Andy White had been detailed to ride another section of the country. Bailey had wisely separated these young hopefuls, fearing that compet.i.tion--for they were always striving to outdo each other--might lead to a hard fall for one or both. Moreover, they were always up to some mischief or other--Andy working the schemes that Pete usually invented for the occasion. Up to the time that he arrived at the Concho ranch, Young Pete had never known the joy of good-natured, rough-and-tumble horseplay, that wholesome diversion that tries a man out, and either rubs off the ragged edges of his temper or marks him as an undesirable and to-be-let-alone. Pete, while possessing a workable sense of humor, was intense--somewhat quick on the trigger, so to speak. The frequent roughings he experienced served to steady him, and also taught him to distinguish the tentative line between good-natured banter and the veiled insult.

Unconsciously he studied his fellows, until he thought he pretty well knew their peculiarities and preferences. Unrealized by Pete, and by themselves, this set him apart from them. They never studied him, but took him for just what he seemed--a bright, quick, and withal industrious youngster, rather quiet at times, but never sullen.

Bailey, whose business it was to know and handle men, confided to his wife that he did not quite understand Pete. And Mrs. Bailey, who was really fond of Pete, was consistently feminine when she averred that it wasn't necessary to understand him so long as he attended to his work and behaved himself, which was Mrs. Bailey's way of dodging the issue.

She did not understand Pete herself. "He does a heap of thinking--for a boy," she told Bailey. "He's got something' besides cattle on his mind," Bailey a.s.serted. Mrs. Bailey had closed the question for the time being with the rather vague a.s.sertion, "I should hope so."

The first real inkling that Andy White had of Pete's deeper nature was occasioned by an incident during the round-up.

The cutting-out and branding were about over. The Concho men, camped round their wagon, were fraternizing with visitors from the Blue and T-Bar-T. Every kind of gossip was afloat. The Government was going to make a game preserve of the Blue Range. Old man Dobson, of the Eight-O-Eight, had fired one of his men for packing whiskey into the camp: "Dobson was drunk hisself!" was a.s.serted. One sprightly and inventive son-of-saddle-leather had brought a pair of horse-clippers to the round-up. Every suffering puncher in the outfit had been thrown and clipped, including the foreman, and even the cattle inspector.

Rumor had it that the boys from the Blue intended to widen their scope of operation and clip everybody. The "gentleman [described in the vernacular] who started to clip my [also described] head'll think he's tackled a tree-kitty," stated a husky cowboy from the T-Bar-T.

Old Montoya's name was mentioned by another rider from the T-Bar-T.

Andy who was lying beside Pete, just within the circle of firelight, nudged him.

"We run every nester out of this country; and it's about time we started in on the sheep," said this individual, and he spoke not jestingly, but with a vicious meaning in his voice, that silenced the talk.

Bailey was there and Houck, the T-Bar-T foreman, Bud Long, foreman of the Blue, and possibly some fifteen or eighteen visiting cowboys. The strident ill-nature of the speaker challenged argument, but the boys were in good-humor.

"What you pickin' on Montoya for?" queried a cowboy, laughing. "He ain't here."

Pete sat up, naturally interested in the answer.

"He's lucky he ain't," retorted the cow-puncher.

"_You're_ lucky he ain't," came from Pete's vicinity.

"Who says so?"

Andy White tugged at Pete's sleeve. "Shut up, Pete! That's Steve Gary talkin'. Don't you go mixin' with Gary. He's right quick with his gun. What's a-bitin' you, anyhow?"

"Who'd you say?" queried Pete.

"Gary--Steve Gary. Reckon you heard of him."

"Who says I'm lucky he ain't here?" again challenged Gary.

"Shut up, Steve," said a friendly cowboy. "Can't you take a josh?"

"Who's lookin' for a row, anyhow?" queried another cowboy. "I ain't."

The men laughed. Pete's face was somber in the firelight. Gary! The man who had led the raid on Pop Annersley's homestead. Pete knew that he would meet Gary some day, and he was curious to see the man who was responsible for the killing of Annersley. He had no definite plan--did not know just what he would do when he met him. Time had dulled the edge of Pete's earlier hatred and experience had taught him to leave well enough alone. But that strident voice, edged with malice, had stirred bitter memories. Pete felt that should he keep silent it would reflect on his loyalty to both Montoya and Annersley. There were men there who knew he had worked for Montoya. They knew, but hardly expected that Pete would take up Gary's general challenge. He was but a youth--hardly more than a boy. The camp was somewhat surprised when Pete got to his feet and stepped toward the fire.

"I'm the one that said you was lucky Montoya wasn't here," he a.s.serted.

"And I'm leavin' it to my boss, or Bud Long, or your own boss"--and he indicated Houck with a gesture--"if I ain't right."