Under Handicap Part 11

Spud made no answer, for at this juncture the cook put a big platter of steak, piled high, upon the table, and the men, dragging their chairs after them, waited no other invitation "to set in." Conniston for a moment held back. Then, as he saw that there were several vacant places, he took up his own chair and sat down at the end of the table nearest him. The man at his left helped himself to meat by harpooning the largest piece in sight and dragging it, dripping, over the edge of the platter and to his own plate. Then he shoved the platter toward Conniston without looking to see whether or not it arrived at its proper destination, and gave his undivided attention to the dish of boiled potatoes which the man upon his left had shoved at him.

Conniston, helping himself slowly, found soon that the potatoes, the rice, and a tray of biscuits were all lodged at his elbow, waiting to be ferried on around the end of the table.

For a few moments all conversation died utterly. These men had done a day's work, a day's work calling upon straining muscles and unslacking energy, and their hunger was an active thing. They plied their knives and forks, took great draughts of their hot tea and coffee, with little attention to aught else. But presently, as their hunger began to be appeased, they broke into conversation again, talking of a hundred range matters of which Conniston understood almost nothing. He drew from the fragments which reached him above the general clatter the same thing that he had got from the few words which had pa.s.sed between Rawhide Jones and Spud. Evidently, the cowboys were pressed with work both on the Half Moon and on the other ranges, and the new foreman, Brayley, was putting on more men and sparing no one in carrying out the orders which came from headquarters. Equally apparently, the man whom they called Bat Truxton was in command of the reclamation work in Rattlesnake Valley, and now with a force of a hundred men was working with an activity even more feverish than Brayley's.

During the meal five more men came in, and with a word of rough greeting to their fellows dropped into their chairs and helped themselves deftly. Conniston recognized one of the men as the half-breed, Joe, whom he had seen meet Miss Crawford in Indian Creek.

Another was Lonesome Pete. Conniston was more gratified than he knew when the red-headed reader of "Macbeth" nodded to him and said a quiet "Howdy." The last man to come in was Brayley.

He was a big man, a trifle shorter than Conniston, but heavier, with broader shoulders, rounded from years in the saddle, with great, deep chest, and thick, powerful arms. He lurched lightly as he walked, his left shoulder thrust forward as though he were constantly about to fling open a door with its solid impact. He was a man of forty, perhaps, and as active of foot as a boy. His heavy, belligerent jaw, the sharp, beady blackness of his eyes, the whole alert, confident air of him bespoke the born foreman.

Conniston was conscious of the piercing black eyes as they swept the table and rested on him. He noticed that Brayley alone of the men who had entered late had no word of greeting for the others, received no single word from them. And he saw further, wondering vaguely what it meant, that as the big foreman came in the eyes of all the others went first to him and then to Conniston.

Brayley stopped a moment at the door, washing his face and hands swiftly, carelessly, satisfied in rubbing a good part of the evidence of the day's toil upon the towel hanging upon a nail close at hand.

Three strokes with the community comb, dangling from a bit of string, and jerking his neck-handkerchief into place, he lurched toward the table. Five feet away he stopped suddenly, his eyes burning into Conniston's.

"Who might you be, stranger?" he snapped, his words coming with unpleasant, almost metallic sharpness.

There fell a sudden silence in the bunk-house. Knives and forks ceased their clatter while the cowboys turned interested eyes upon the Easterner.

Conniston caught the unveiled threat in the foreman's tones, saw that he had come in in the mood of a man ready to find fault, and took an instinctive disliking for the man he was being paid a dollar a day to take orders from. He returned Brayley's glance steadily, angered more at knowing that the blood was again creeping up into his cheeks than because of the curt question. And, staring at him steadily, he made no further answer.

"Can't you talk?" cried Brayley, angrily. "Are you deef an' dumb? I said, who might you be?"

"I heard you," replied Conniston, quietly. And to the man upon his left, "Will you kindly pa.s.s me the bread?"

The man grinned in rare enjoyment, and, since he kept his eyes upon Brayley's glowering face, it was hardly strange that he handed Conniston a plate of stewed prunes instead.

"Thank you," Conniston said to him, still ignoring Brayley. "But it was bread I said."

"An' I said something!" cut in Brayley, his voice crisp and incisive.

"Did you get me?"

"I got you, friend." Conniston put out his hand for the bread and caught a gleam of sparkling amus.e.m.e.nt in Lonesome Pete's eyes from across the table. "And maybe after you tell me who you are I might answer you."

"Me!" thundered the big man, lurching one step nearer, his under jaw thrust still farther out. "Me! I'm Brayley, that's who I am! An' I'm the foreman of this here outfit."

"Thank you, Brayley." Conniston's anger was pounding in his temples, but he strove to keep it back. "I'm Conniston. I was told to report here by Mr. Crawford to go to work in the morning. I suppose I report to you?"

"Conniston are you, huh? All right, Conniston. Now who happened to tell you to slap yourself down in that there chair, huh?"

"n.o.body," returned Conniston, calmly. "I didn't suppose that I was to stand up and eat."

Lonesome Pete's grin overran his eyes, and the ends of his fiery mustache curved upward. Two or three men laughed outright. Brayley's brows twitched into a scowling frown.

"n.o.body's askin' you to git funny, little rooster! You git out 'n that chair an' git out 'n it fas'. _Sabe?_"

Calm-blooded by nature and by long habit, Conniston had mastered the flood of blood to his brain and grown perfectly cool. Brayley, on the other hand, had come in in a seething rage from a tussle with a colt in which his stirrup leather had broken and he had rolled in the dust of the corral, to the boundless glee of two or three of his men who had seen it, and now there was nothing to restrain his anger.

Conniston was laughing into his face.

"I hear you," he said, lightly. "My ears are good, and your voice is not bad by any means. Only I'd really like to know why you want me to get up. Is it custom here for a new man to remain standing until the foreman is seated? If I am violating any customs--"

Again Brayley took one lurching step forward. Conniston pushed his chair back so that his feet were clear of the table leg.

"I say, Brayley"--Lonesome Pete had half risen from his chair and was speaking softly--"Conniston here didn't know. n.o.body put him wise as how you sat in that particular chair. An'," even more softly, "he's a frien' of Mr. Crawford."

"Who's askin' you to chip in?" challenged Brayley, his eyes flashing for the moment from Conniston to Lonesome Pete. "An' if he's a frien'

of Crawford's, why ain't he up to the house instead of down here?

Huh?"

Lonesome Pete shrugged his shoulders and settled back into his chair.

"Slip me a sinker, Rawhide," he said, quietly, to the man next to him as though he had lost all interest in the conversation.

"Frien' of the Ol' Man's or no frien'," bl.u.s.tered Brayley, his eyes again on Conniston's, "if you're goin' to work I guess you're goin' to take orders from me like the rest of the boys. An' the first order is, _git out'n that there chair!_"

"Look here," Conniston replied, quietly, "I didn't know that I was taking a seat reserved for you, and I didn't mean any offense. You can take that as a sort of an apology if you like. But at the same time, even if I am to take orders from you, I am not going to be bulldozed by you or anybody like you. If you will ask me decently--"

"Ask you!" bellowed Brayley. "Ask you! By the Lord, I don't _ask_ my men! I _make_ 'em!"

He had leaped forward with his last word, his two big hands outstretched with clawing fingers. Before Conniston could spring from his chair to meet the attack the iron hands were upon his shoulders.

He felt himself being lifted bodily from his seat. His weight was scarcely less than the irate foreman's, and he employed every pound of it as he staggered to his feet and flung himself against his burly antagonist. The men about the table sat still, watching, saying no word.

Conniston's strength was less than the other's, and he knew it, knew that his endurance would be nothing against the muscles seasoned by daily physical work until they were like steel. He knew that in two minutes of battling struggle he would be like a kitten in the big, powerful hands. And he was of no mind to have Brayley manhandle him before such an audience as was now sitting quietly watching, listening to his panting breaths. In one straining effort he jerked his right shoulder free, swung his clenched fist back, and drove it smashing into Brayley's face.

Brayley's head snapped back, and the blood from his cut mouth ran across his white, bared teeth. Conniston sprang forward to follow up the blow. But Brayley had caught his balance and was leaping to meet him, snarling. His hard, toil-blackened fist drove through Conniston's guard, striking him full upon the jaw. Conniston reeled, and before he could catch himself a second blow caught him under the ear, and with outflung arms he pitched backward and fell, striking the back of his head upon the rough boards of the floor.

For one dizzy moment the world went black for him. And then it went red, flaming, flaring red, as he heard a man's laugh. An anger the like of which he had never known in the placid days of his easy life was upon him, an anger which made him forget all things under the arch of heaven excepting the one man with b.l.o.o.d.y fists glaring into his eyes, an anger blind and hot and primitive. Again he knew that he was on his feet; again he was rushing at the man who stood waiting for him.

"Stan' back!" roared Brayley. "I ain't goin' to play with you all day."

Conniston laughed and did not know that he had done so. He only saw that Brayley had stepped back a pace, and that he had something, black but glistening in the pale light, tight clenched in his hand. Crying out hoa.r.s.ely, inarticulately, he threw himself forward.

Again Brayley met him, this time the revolver in his hand thrust before him. It was almost in Conniston's face now. Somebody cried out sharply. Several of the men jumped from their seats and leaped out from behind Conniston. Two or three of them slipped under the table to crawl out on the other side. Then Conniston saw what the something was in Brayley's hand.

"Shoot, you dirty coward!" he yelled, as he swung his arm out toward the big six-shooter.

For one moment Brayley seemed to hesitate. And then as the two men came together the barrel of the gun rose and fell swiftly, striking Conniston full upon the forehead. His arms dropped like lead; the dizzy blackness came back upon him, growing blacker, blacker; and he fell silently, unconsciously.

It was very quiet in the bunk-house when he opened his eyes. A sudden pain through the temples, a rising nausea, blackness and dizziness again, made him close them, frowning. He knew that he was lying in his bunk and that he was very weak. There was a cold, wet towel tied tight about his forehead.

The table had been cleared away, and the cook was finishing his dish-washing by the stove. A lantern swinging from the beam which ran across the middle of the room showed him that all the men were in their bunks with the exception of two who were playing cribbage at the table. They were Lonesome Pete and Rawhide Jones. When they saw him leaning out from his bunk Lonesome Pete put down his cards and came to him.

"How're they comin', stranger?" he asked, with no great expression in either eyes or voice.

"Where's Brayley?" demanded Conniston, quickly.

"He ain't here none jest now. No, he ain't exac'ly ran away, nuther.

Brayley ain't the kind as runs away. He was sent for to come to the Lone Dog, where there's some kind of trouble on. Seein' as that's thirty mile or worse, the chances is he'll ride mos' all night an'

won't be back for a day or two."