The Sheriff of Badger Part 43

[Ill.u.s.tration: Spur brand]

A visitor to Hope Canon is met by two tow-headed children, who greet him with their fingers in their mouths, staring round-eyed. These are Virginia and Eunice Johnson, daughters of the ex-sheriff, and they are aged respectively six and three years. Both of the parents are very dark, as you know, and Lafe's most reliable joke is to query Hetty very solemnly on the marked blondness of their offspring.

Hetty herself is plump and matronly. She is now in a position to afford domestics, and she has the calm bearing and complacence of a healthy, fruitful woman whose lot lies in pleasant places. In her face is the fulfillment of early promise. Selfishness and evil thinking may be slow to leave their marks, but devotion to a n.o.ble sense of duty will invariably light a woman's face. Although her household duties are greatly lessened, she takes such extraordinary pains in the bringing up of her children that her every hour is fully occupied. True, she occasionally s.n.a.t.c.hes a half day to herself; but guess what the busybody does then? She drives over to the Ferriers', and lends her sister-in-law aid in straightening out her domestic difficulties. Bob Ferrier is working for Lafe, and works conscientiously, but he will never be anything but a salaried employe, for he lacks the faculty of thinking for himself. Perhaps he was too long under routine. Consequently their increasing family necessities provide the industrious Hetty with ample opportunity to exercise her desire of helping. So she is happy.

And when the Ferriers are provided for and everything is running evenly, of course she must interest herself in the plight of less fortunate neighbors. Many nesters have come to the country to take up farms, and to these Hetty appears as a saving angel, however hostile their arrival has been to her husband's interests. There are a few women in this world who must always be doing good or they are wretched, and Lafe had stumbled upon one of them for wife.

I have left until last any reference to a very important individual in the Johnson household--Lafe, Jr., the heir of the Spur. My reason for so doing has been a reluctance to take him up until something more to his credit than his father's comments, could be offered. The truth is that Lafe, Jr., has been a wild boy and a sore trial. He has shown tendencies which have greatly exercised his father. Hetty is more inclined to be lenient, which may be responsible for some of the trouble.

At the time this chapter opens, Lafe, Jr., was a tall, lank youth of about fifteen years, all k.n.o.bby joints and hands and feet. When he spoke it gave one a scare, because his tones slid without warning from a high falsetto to a most sonorous ba.s.s. He was, indeed, at that awkward age when a well-grown boy is verging on manhood. Often Hetty worried over his abstraction and fits of sullenness; also, pimples marred his appearance, and a growth of down on chin and upper lip gave Lafe, Jr., food for thought.

"I swan that boy's getting worse every day," said Lafe to his wife one morning.

"What's he done now?" she asked.

"Oh, I done caught him out behind the barn again smoking cigarettes.

Bill, he told me yesterday that he seen Lafe taking a drink out of a bottle with the horse wrangler. I'll can that feller if he don't leave Lafe alone."

"Oh, goodness, let the boy be, Lafe. You told me yourself you smoked when you were nine. All the boys out here learn to do that mighty young, and some of them know how to drink right well, too."

"That's all right," said Johnson stubbornly, "but I don't expect our son to be a no-account feller. We've got the money to educate him fine. But I'm scared to send him away until I'm sure he's worth it."

"Well, anyhow, don't be too hard on him. Don't go jumping on the boy all the time, Lafe. If you do you'll make a sneak out of him."

"He's mighty nigh that now," said Lafe, and walked out of the room before Hetty could start an argument on the point.

He had not spoken to his wife of the worry that rankled deepest. This was nothing less than a doubt of his son's courage. To a man who had lived as Johnson had lived, who had calmly braved danger every month in his life, absence of pluck is the most despicable of human traits.

Little incidents he had noted in the behavior of Lafe, Jr., filled the boss with a dread that his son might not only be lacking in aggressive courage, but might be the victim of positive cowardice. However, he reflected that happenings previous to his birth may have been responsible, which gave him a patience with the boy he might not otherwise have had. Yet Lafe, Jr.'s, shrinking fear of the ordinary risks of range life was wholly at variance with the reckless spirit he had shown as a child.

"He's even scared of his horse," said Lafe to me on a night. "Don't tell anybody, Dan. I'd be 'shamed. But I've seen that boy's knees near knock together before he crawled up on ol' Waspnest."

"He's at a bad age," I said, trying to console him. "In the first place, he has grown too fast, and in the second place, you haven't handled him properly. Lafe is a mighty sensitive boy and you ought to be more companionable with him. As long as you hold him off and never give him anything but a stern order, he's going to do things which you think are sneaky."

The boss looked astounded. It was a new experience for him to be told that he did not know how to manage a fellow creature, and the fact that that fellow creature was his son sharpened the sting. He stared at me a long time very thoughtfully.

"Maybe you're right," he said. "I'll give it a trial, anyhow."

Acting on this suggestion, he began to take Lafe, Jr., with him on his rounds of the range. At first the boy was suspicious of his father's motive in this move, and showed it by the reluctance and laziness with which he executed his orders; but, discovering in his sire's att.i.tude nothing to confirm this view, he became more cheerful and took to the work with alacrity. Johnson was much pleased. He told me that the boy was shaping right to become a man yet.

CHAPTER XLIII

MOFFATT ONCE MORE

Towards nightfall on a day in June the boss of the Anvil rode in to headquarters from a tour of some water-holes that required patching. His son accompanied him, astride a mouse-colored bronco that, a month before, neither Lafe nor myself would have suspected him capable of handling. There was n.o.body near the stables, which was unusual, but Mrs.

Horne met them at the corral gate. She was very collected, but so white that she frightened Lafe.

"Well," she said distinctly, "it's all over now. He's dead."

Johnson had just stepped out of the saddle. Still holding his horse by the cheek of the bridle, he said in amazement: "Ma'am?"

"Yes," she repeated, "he's dead."

Then she began to sway on her feet, and before Lafe could reach her, Mrs. Horne had fainted. With his son's help he bore her to the house.

There he found everything in confusion. Two native women were padding about, wringing their hands and wailing for help, while Manuel knelt beside a sofa in the dining-room and bathed Horne's face and forehead with water. Lafe gave Mrs. Horne into the care of these females and bade them sternly to be silent. He then turned his attention to his employer.

In her distraction and first outbreak of grief, Mrs. Horne had been too hasty. The cowman was not dead. He had a bullet through his neck and another in the region of the stomach, but he was still alive and Johnson did not give up hope. Well he knew what a tough person this same Horne was, and he calculated that his indomitable spirit would help nature to pull him through. To Mrs. Horne, now revived and tearfully anxious to be of use, he said: "Pshaw, don't take on so, Miz Horne. It'll take more'n two bullets to kill the ol' man. How did it happen?"

In a gush of words she began to tell him, but Manuel rose from the floor and interrupted. The Mexican was almost hysterical, but from the two of them Lafe was able to piece together a fairly accurate picture of what had transpired.

Headquarters had been deserted except for the owner and Manuel, who was working in the stables at the time, and the three women. Old man Horne was dozing in a hammock, when a rider came to the corral and turned his horse inside. Horne woke in time to perceive the stranger throw his saddle on one of the Anvil horses. The cowman called out to him to know what he meant by it, and getting no reply, descended from the veranda and hurried to the corral.

Manuel was cleaning out the stallion's stall when he heard loud talking in the corral. Hardly had he laid down his fork in order to go to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, than there came two shots. He reached the door of the stable in time to see a man ride off at full speed. In the corral he had found Mr. Horne lying unconscious, and he heaved him on to his back and carried him to the house; all alone he did it.

In about half an hour the cowman opened his eyes.

"h.e.l.lo, Lafe," he said.

The boss despatched his son to Badger to fetch Dr. Armstrong and himself set to work to ease the cowman's pain. The wound in his neck gave Lafe no concern, but that in the stomach caused Horne acute agony and Lafe feared internal hemorrhages.

"It was that skunk, Steve Moffatt," Horne told Lafe in a whisper. "He's come back after all these years."

"Don't talk," said Lafe.

"I will talk," said the cowman. "I'm not going to die for a long while yet."

"What was the trouble about?"

"I didn't know him at first, on account of he looks so much older. And he's grown a beard. He wanted a horse and I wouldn't give him one. Then he plugged me. Plugged me in cold blood, he did. Just as he did it he told me that would square us for me and Floyd offering that reward way back fifteen years ago."

In the course of nine hours Lafe, Jr., returned with the doctor. By that time Mrs. Horne had taken to her bed and was almost as much in need of Armstrong's services as was her husband. He made a brief examination and reported that the wounds were dangerous, but not necessarily fatal.

The patient's advanced age was his greatest concern. Rea.s.sured on this point, Johnson and his son went to sleep.

The cowman sent for his manager in early afternoon.

"Lafe," he said, "I'm going to get all right. I've got enough nurses here, and I want you to go get Steve Moffatt. He's always tried to give me and you dirt, and I'm beginning to think that the Lord intended you to round him up. Take what money you need and go fetch him."

"I'll get him," said the boss.

"And, say," the cowman called after him, "when you catch him, bring him here to me. Whether he's living or dead, bring him here to me. I want to see Steve Moffatt for what he did yesterday."

Lafe promised and went out. He found his son near the corral, repairing a cinch with a bit of twine.

"Where're you going?" the boy asked.

The boss paused in his walk and surveyed him critically for some moments.