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Cow-Country

by B. M. Bower

April, 1999 [Etext #1723]

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COW-COUNTRY

by B. M. BOWER

CHAPTERS:

AN AMBITIOUS MAN-CHILD WAS BUDDY
THE TRAIL HERD
SOME INDIAN LORE
BUDDY GIVES WARNING
BUDDY RUNS TRUE TO TYPE
THE YOUNG EAGLE MUST FLY
BUD FLIPS A COIN WITH FATE
THE MULESHOE
LITTLE LOST
BUD MEETS THE WOMAN
GUILE AGAINST THE WILY
SPORT O' KINGS
THE SINKS
EVEN MUSHROOMS HELP
WHY BUD MISSED A DANCE
WHILE THE GOING'S GOOD
GUARDIAN ANGELS ARE RIDING "POINT"
THE CATROCK GANG
BUD RIDES THROUGH CATROCK AND LOSES MARIAN
"PICK YOUR FOOTING!"
TRAILS END

COW-COUNTRY

CHAPTER ONE: AN AMBITIOUS MAN-CHILD WAS BUDDY

In hot mid afternoon when the acrid, gray dust cloud kicked

up by the listless plodding of eight thousand cloven hoofs

formed the only blot on the hard blue above the Staked

Plains, an ox stumbled and fell awkwardly under his yoke, and

refused to scramble up when his negro driver shouted and

prodded him with the end of a willow gad.

"Call your master, Ezra," directed a quiet woman voice gone

weary and toneless with the heat and two restless children.

"Don't beat the poor brute. He can't go any farther and carry

the yoke, much less pull the wagon."

Ezra dropped the gad and stepped upon the wagon tongue where

he might squint into the dust cloud and decide which gray,

plodding horseman alongside the herd was Robert Birnie. Far

across the sluggish river of grimy backs, a horse threw up

its head with a peculiar sidelong motion, and Ezra's eyes

lightened with recognition. That was the colt, Rattler,

chafing against the slow pace he must keep. Hands cupped

around big, chocolate-colored lips and big, yellow-white

teeth, Ezra whoo-ee-ed the signal that called the nearest

riders to the wagon that held the boss's family.

Bob Birnie and another man turned and came trotting back, and

at the call a scrambling youngster peered over his mother's

shoulder in the forward opening of the prairie schooner.

"O-oh, Dulcie! We gonna git a wile cow agin!"

Dulcie was asleep and did not answer, and the woman in the

slat sun-bonnet pushed back with her elbow the eager,

squirming body of her eldest. "Stay in the wagon, Buddy.

Mustn't get down amongst the oxen. One might kick you. Lie

down and take a nap with sister. When you waken it will be

nice and cool again."

"Not s'eepy!" objected Buddy for the twentieth time in the

past two hours. But he crawled back, and his mother, relieved

of his restless presence, leaned forward to watch the

approach of her husband and the cowboy. This was the second

time in the past two days that an ox had fallen exhausted,

and her eyes showed a trace of anxiety. With the feed so poor

and the water so scarce, it seemed as though the heavy wagon,

loaded with a few household idols too dear to leave behind, a

camp outfit and the necessary clothing and bedding for a

woman and two children, was going to be a real handicap on

the drive.

"Robert, if we had another wagon, I could drive it and make

the load less for these four oxen," she suggested when her

husband came up. "A lighter wagon, perhaps with one team of

strong horses, or even with a yoke of oxen, I could drive

well enough, and relieve these poor brutes." She pushed back

her sun-bonnet and with it a mass of red-brown hair that

curled damply on her forehead, and smiled disarmingly. "Buddy

would be the happiest baby boy alive if I could let him drive

now and then!" she added humorously.

"Can't make a wagon and an extra yoke of oxen out of this

cactus patch," Bob Birnie grinned good humoredly. "Not even

to tickle Buddy. I'll see what I can do when we reach Olathe.

But you won't have to take a man's place and drive, Lassie."

He took the cup of water she drew from a keg and proffered-

water was precious on the Staked Plains, that season-and his

eyes dwelt on her fondly while he drank. Then, giving her

hand a squeeze when he returned the cup, he rode back to scan

the herd for an animal big enough and well-conditioned enough

to supplant the worn-out ox.

"Aren't you thirsty, Frank Davis? I think a cup of water will

do you good," she called out to the cowboy, who had

dismounted to tighten his forward cinch in expectation of

having to use his rope.

The cowboy dropped stirrup from saddle horn and came forward

stiff-leggedly, leading his horse. His sun-baked face,

grimed with the dust of the herd, was aglow with heat, and

his eyes showed gratitude. A cup of water from the hand of

the boss's wife was worth a gallon from the barrel slip-

slopping along in the lurching chuck-wagon.

"How's the kids makin' out, Mis' Birnie?" Frank inquired

politely when he had swallowed the last drop and had wiped

his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's right warm and

dusty t'day."

"They're asleep at last, thank goodness," she answered,

glancing back at a huddle of pink calico that showed just

over the crest of a pile of crumpled quilts. "Buddy has a

hard time of it. He's all man in his disposition, and all

baby in size. He's been teasing to walk with the niggers and

help drive the drag. Is my husband calling?"

Her husband was, and Frank rode away at a leisurely trot.

Haste had little to do with trailing a herd, where eight

miles was called a good day's journey and six an average

achievement. The fallen ox was unyoked by the mellow-voiced

but exasperated Ezra, and since he would not rise, the three

remaining oxen, urged by the gad and Ezra's upbraiding, swung

the wagon to one side and moved it a little farther after the

slow-moving herd, so that the exhausted animal could rest,

and the raw recruit be yoked in where he could do the least

harm and would the speediest learn a new lesson in

discomfort. Mrs. Birnie glanced again at the huddle of pink

in the nest of quilts behind a beloved chest of drawers in

the wagon, and sighed with relief because Buddy slept.

An ambitious man-child already was Buddy, accustomed to

certain phrases that, since he could toddle, had formed

inevitable accompaniment to his investigative footsteps.

"L'k-out-dah!" he had for a long time believed to be his

name among the black folk of his world. White folk had varied

it slightly. He knew that "Run-to-mother-now" meant that

something he would delight in but must not watch was going to

take place. Spankings more or less official and not often

painful signified that big folks did not understand him and

his activities, or were cross about something. Now, mother

did not want him to watch the wild cow run and jump at the

end of a rope until finally forced to submit to the ox-yoke

and help pull the wagon. Buddy loved to watch them, but he

understood that mother was afraid the wild cow might step on

him. Why she should want him to sleep when he was not sleepy

he had not yet discovered, and so disdained to give it

serious consideration.

"Not s'eepy," Buddy stated again emphatically as a sort of

mental dismissal of the command, and crawled carefully past

Sister and lifted a flap of the canvas cover. A button--the

last button--popped off his pink apron and the sleeves rumpled

down over his hands. It felt all loose and useless, so Buddy

stopped long enough to pull the apron off and throw it beside

Sister before he crawled under the canvas flap and walked

down the spokes of a rear wheel. He did not mean to get in

the way of the wild cow, but he did want action for his

restless legs. He thought that if he went away from the wagon

and the herd and played while they were catching the wild

cow, it would be just the same as if he took a nap. Mother

hadn't thought of it, or she might have suggested it.

So Buddy went away from the wagon and down into a shallow dry

wash where the wild cow would not come, and played. The first

thing he saw was a scorpion-nasty old bug that will bite

hard-and he threw rocks at it until it scuttled under a ledge

out of sight. The next thing he saw that interested him at

all was a horned toad; a hawn-toe, he called it, after Ezra's

manner of speaking. Ezra had caught a hawntoe for him a few

days ago, but it had mysteriously disappeared out of the

wagon. Buddy did not connect his mother's lack of enthusiasm

with the disappearance. Her sympathy with his loss had seemed

to him real, and he wanted another, fully believing that in

this also mother would be pleased. So he took after this

particular HAWN-toe, that crawled into various hiding places

only to be spied and routed out with small rocks and a sharp

stick.

The dry wash remained shallow, and after a while Buddy, still

in hot pursuit of the horned toad, emerged upon the level

where the herd had passed. The wagon was nowhere in sight,

but this did not disturb Buddy. He was not lost. He knew

perfectly that the brown cloud on his narrowed horizon was

the dust over the herd, and that the wagon was just behind,

because the wind that day was blowing from the southwest, and

also because the oxen did not walk as fast as the herd. In

the distance he saw the "Drag" moving lazily along after the

dust-cloud, with barefooted niggers driving the laggard

cattle and singing dolefully as they walked. Emphatically

Buddy was not lost.

He wanted that particular horned toad, however, and he kept

after it until he had it safe in his two hands.

It happened that when he pounced at last upon the toad he

disturbed with his presence a colony of red ants on moving

day. The close ranks of them, coming and going in a straight

line, caught and held Buddy's attention to the exclusion of

everything else--save the horned toad he had been at such

pains to acquire. He tucked the toad inside his underwaist

and ignored its wriggling against his flesh while he squatted

in the hot sunshine and watched the ants, his mind one great

question. Where were they going, and what were they carrying,

and why were they all in such a hurry?

Buddy had to know. To himself he called trailherd--but

father's cattle did not carry white lumps of stuff on their

heads, and furthermore, they all walked together in the same

direction; whereas the ant herd traveled both ways. Buddy

made sure of this, and then started off, following what he

had decided was the real trail of the ants. Most children

would have stirred them up with a stick; Buddy let them alone

so that he could see what they were doing all by themselves.

The ants led him to a tiny hole with a finely pulverized rim

just at the edge of a sprawly cactus. This last Buddy

carefully avoided, for even at four years old he had long ago

learned the sting of cactus thorns. A rattlesnake buzzed

warning when he backed away and the shock to Buddy's nerves

roused within him the fighting spirit. Rattlesnakes he knew

also, as the common enemy of men and cattle. Once a steer had

been bitten on the nose and his head had swollen up so he

couldn't eat. Buddy did not want that to happen to HIM.

He made sure that the horned toad was safe, chose a rock as

large as he could lift and heave from him, and threw it at

the buzzing, gray coil. He did not wait to see what happened,

but picked up another rock, a terrific buzzing sounding

stridently from the coil. He threw another and another with

all the force of his healthy little muscles. For a four-year-

old he aimed well; several of the rocks landed on the coil.

The snake wriggled feebly from under the rocks and tried to

crawl away and hide, its rattles clicking listlessly. Buddy

had another rock in his hands and in his eyes the blue fire

of righteous conquest. He went close-close enough to have

brought a protesting cry from a grownup-lifted the rock high

as he could and brought it down fair on the battered head of

the rattler. The loathsome length of it winced and thrashed

ineffectively, and after a few minutes lay slack, the tail

wriggling aimlessly.

Buddy stood with his feet far apart and his hands on his

hips, as he had seen the cowboy do whom he had unconsciously

imitated in the killing.

"Snakes like Injuns. Dead'ns is good 'ens," He observed

sententiously, still playing the part of the cowboy. Then,

quite sure that the snake was dead, he took it by the tail,

felt again of the horned toad on his chest and went back to

see what the ants were doing.

When so responsible a person as a grownup stops

to watch the orderly activities of an army of ants,

minutes and hours slip away unnoticed. Buddy was

absolutely fascinated, lost to everything else. When

some instinct born in the very blood of him warned Buddy that

time was passing, he stood up and saw that the sun hung just

above the edge of the world, and that the sky was a glorious

jumble of red and purple and soft rose.

The first thing Buddy did was to stoop and study attentively

the dead snake, to see if the tail still wiggled. It did not,

though he watched it for a full minute. He looked at the sun--

it had not set but glowed big and yellow as far from the

earth as his father was tall. Ezra had lied to him. Dead

snakes did not wiggle their tails until sundown.

Buddy looked for the dust cloud of the herd, and was

surprised to find it smaller than he had ever seen it, and

farther away. Indeed, he could only guess that the faint

smudge on the horizon was the dust he had followed for more

days than he could count. He was not afraid, but he was

hungry and he thought his mother would maybe wonder where he

was, and he knew that the point-riders had already stopped

pushing the herd ahead, and that the cattle were feeding now

so that they would bed down at dusk. The chuckwagon was

camped somewhere close by, and old Step-and-a-Half, the lame

cook, was stirring things in his Dutch ovens over the camp-

fire. Buddy could almost smell the beans and the meat stew,

he was so hungry. He turned and took one last, long look at

the endless stream of ants still crawling along, picked up

the dead snake by the tail, cupped the other hand over the

horned toad inside his waist, and started for camp.

After a while he heard someone shouting, but beyond faint

relief that he was after all near his "Outfit", Buddy paid no

attention. The boys were always shouting to one another, or

yelling at their horses or at the herd or at the niggers. It

did not occur to him that they might be shouting for him,

until from another direction he heard Ezra's unmistakable,

booming voice. Ezra sang a thunderous baritone when the

niggers lifted up their voices in song around their camp-

fire, and he could be heard for half a mile when he called in

real earnest. He was calling now, and Buddy, stopping to

listen, fancied that he heard his name. A little farther on,

he was sure of it.

"OOO-EE! Whah y'all, Buddy? OOO-EEE!"

"I'm a-comin'," Buddy shrilled impatiently. "What y' all

want?"

His piping voice did not carry to Ezra, who kept on shouting.

The radiant purple and red and gold above him deepened,

darkened. The whole wild expanse of half-barren land became

suddenly a place of unearthly beauty that dulled to the

shadows of dusk. Buddy trudged on, keeping to the deep-worn

buffalo trails which the herd had followed and scored afresh

with their hoofs. He could not miss his way-not Buddy, son of

Bob Birnie, owner of the Tomahawk outfit-but his legs were

growing pretty tired, and he was so hungry that he could have

sat down on the ground and cried with the gnawing food-call

of his empty little stomach.

He could hear other voices shouting at intervals now, but

Ezra's voice was the loudest and the closest, and it seemed

to Buddy that Ezra never once stopped calling. Twice Buddy

called back that he was a-comin', but Ezra shouted just the

same: "OOO-EE! WHAH Y' ALL, BUDDY? OOO-EE!"

Imperceptibly dusk deepened to darkness. A gust of anger

swept Buddy's soul because he was tired, because he was

hungry and he was yet a long way from the camp, but chiefly

because Ezra persisted in calling after Buddy had several

times answered. He heard someone whom he recognized as Frank

Davis, but by this time he was so angry that he would not say

a word, though he was tempted to ask Frank to take him up on

his horse and let him ride to camp. He heard others-and once

the beat of hoofs came quite close. But there was a wide

streak of Scotch stubbornness in Buddy--along with several

other Scotch streaks--and he continued his stumbling progress,

dragging the snake by the tail, his other hand holding fast

the horned toad.

His heart jumped up and almost choked him when first saw the

three twinkles on the ground which knew were not stars but

camp-fires.

Quite unexpectedly he trudged into the firelight where Step-

and-a-Half was stirring delectable things in the iron pots

and stopping every minute or so to stare anxiously into the

gloom. Buddy stood blinking and sniffing, his eyes fixed upon

the Dutch ovens.

"I'm HUNGRY!" he announced accusingly, gripping the toad that

had begun to squirm at the heat and light. I kilt a snake an'

I'm HUNGRY!"

"Good gorry!" swore Step-and-a-Half, and whipped out his

six-shooter and fired three shots into the air.

Footsteps came scurrying. Buddy's mother swept him into her

arms, laughing with a little whimpering sound of tears in the

laughter. Buddy wriggled protestingly in her arms.

"L'kout! Y' all SKUCSH 'im! I got a HAWN-toe; wight here."

He patted his chest gloatingly. "An' I got a snake. I kilt

'im. An' I'm HUNGRY."

Mother of Buddy though she was, Lassie set him down hurriedly

and surveyed her man-child from a little distance.

"Buddy! Drop that snake instantly'"

Buddy obeyed, but he planted a foot close to his kill and

pouted his lips. "'S my snake. I kilt 'im," He said firmly.

He pulled the horned toad from his waist-front and held it

tightly in his two hands. "An's my hawn-toe. I ketche'd'm.

'Way ova dere," he added, tilting his tow head toward the

darkness behind him.

Bob Birnie rode up at a gallop, pulled up his horse in the

edge of the fire glow and dismounted hastily.

Bob Birnie never needed more than one glance to furnish him

the details of a scene. He saw the very small boy confronting

his mother with a dead snake, a horned toad and a stubborn

set to his lips. He saw that the mother looked rather

helpless before the combination--and his brown mustache hid a

smile. He walked up and looked his first-born over.

"Buddy," He demanded sternly, "where have you been?"

"Out dere. Kilt a snake. Ants was trailing a herd. I got a

HAWN-toe. An' I'm hungry!"

"You know better than to leave the wagon, young man. Didn't

you know we had to get out and hunt you, and mother was

scared the wolves might eat you? Didn't you hear us calling

you? Why didn't you answer?"

Buddy looked up from under his baby eyebrows at his father,

who seemed very tall and very terrible. But his bare foot

touched the dead snake and he took comfort. "I was comin',"

he said. "I WASN'T los'. I bringed my snake and my hawn-toe.

An' dey--WASN'T--any--woluffs!" The last word came muffled,

buried in his mother's skirts.

CHAPTER TWO: THE TRAIL HERD

Day after day the trail herd plodded slowly to the north,

following the buffalo trails that would lead to water, and

the crude map of one who had taken a herd north and had

returned with a tale of vast plains and no rivals. Always

through the day the dust cloud hung over the backs of the

cattle, settled into the clothes of those who followed,

grimed the pink aprons of Buddy and his small sister Dulcie

so that they were no longer pink. Whenever a stream was

reached, mother searched patiently for clear water and an

untrampled bit of bank where she might do the family washing,

leaving Ezra to mind the children. But even so the crust and

the wear and tear of travel remained to harass her fastidious

soul.

Buddy remembered that drive as he could not remember the

comfortable ranch house of his earlier babyhood. To him

afterward it seemed that life began with the great herd of

cattle. He came to know just how low the sun must slide from

the top of the sky before the "point" would spread out with

noses to the ground, pausing wherever a mouthful of grass was

to be found. When these leaders of the herd stopped, the

cattle would scatter and begin feeding. If there was water

they would crowd the banks of the stream or pool, pushing and

prodding one another with their great, sharp horns. Later,

when the sun was gone and dusk crept out of nowhere, the

cowboys would ride slowly around the herd, pushing it quietly

into a smaller compass. Then, if Buddy were not too sleepy,

he would watch the cattle lie down to chew their cuds in

deep, sighing content until they slept. It reminded Buddy

vaguely of when mother popped corn in a wire popper, a long

time ago-before they all lived in a wagon and went with the

herd. First one and two-then there would be three, four,

five, as many as Buddy could count-then the whole herd would

be lying down.

Buddy loved the camp-fires. The cowboys would sit around the

one where his father and mother sat--mother with Dulcie in

her arms--and they would smoke and tell stories, until mother

told him it was time little boys were in bed. Buddy always

wanted to know what they said after he had climbed into the

big wagon where mother had made a bed, but he never found

out. He could remember lying there listening sometimes to the

niggers singing at their own campfire within call, Ezra

always singing the loudest,--just as a bull always could be

heard above the bellowing of the herd.

All his life, Ezra's singing and the monotonous bellowing of

a herd reminded Buddy of one mysteriously terrible time when

there weren't any rivers or any ponds or anything along the

trail, and they had to be careful of the water and save it,

and he and Dulcie were not asked to wash their faces. I think

that miracle helped to fix the incident indelibly in Buddy's

mind; that, and the bellowing of the cattle. It seemed a

month to Buddy, but as he grew older he learned that it was

three days they went without water.

The first day he did not remember especially, except that

mother had talked about clean aprons that night, and failed

to produce any. The second he recalled quite clearly. Father

came to the wagons sometime in the night to see if mother was

asleep. Their murmured talk wakened Buddy and he heard father

say:

"We'll hold 'em, all right, Lassie. And there's water ahead.

It's marked on the trail map. Don't you worry--I'll stay up

and help the boys. The cattle are uneasy--but we'll hold

'em."

The third day Buddy never forgot. That was the day when

mother forgot that Q stands for Quagga, and permitted Buddy

to call it P, just for fun, because it looked so much like P.

And when he said " W is water ", mother made a funny sound

and said right out loud,"0h God, please!" and told Buddy to

creep back and play with Sister--when Sister was asleep, and

there were still x, y and z to say, let alone that mysterious

And-so-forth which seemed to mean so much and so little and

never was called upon to help spell a word. Never since he

began to have lessons had mother omitted a single letter or

cut the study hour down the teeniest little bit.

Buddy was afraid of something, but he could not think what it

was that frightened him. He began to think seriously about

water, and to listen uneasily to the constant lowing of the

herd. The increased shouting of the niggers driving the

lagging ones held a sudden significance. It occurred to him

that the niggers had their hands full, and that they had

never driven so big a "Drag." It was hotter than ever, too,

and they had twice stopped to yoke in fresh oxen. Ezra had

boasted all along that ole Bawley would keep his end up till

they got clah to Wyoming. But ole Bawley had stopped, and

stopped, and at last had to be taken out of the yoke. Buddy

began to wish they would hurry up and find a river.

None of the cowboys would take him on the saddle and let him

ride, that day. They looked harassed--Buddy called it cross--

when they rode up to the wagon to give their horses a few

mouthfuls of water from the barrel. Step-and-a-Half couldn't

spare any more, they told mother. He had declared at noon

that he needed every drop he had for the cooking, and there

would be no washing of dishes whatever. Later, mother had

studied a map and afterwards had sat for a long while staring

out over the backs of the cattle, her face white. Buddy

thought perhaps mother was sick.

That day lasted hours and hours longer than any other day

that Buddy could remember. His father looked cross, too, when

he rode back to them. Once it was to look at the map which

mother had studied. They talked together afterwards, and

Buddy heard his father say that she must not worry; the

cattle had good bottom, and could stand thirst better than a

poor herd, and another dry camp would not really hurt anyone.

He had uncovered the water barrel and looked in, and had

ridden straight over to the chuck-wagon, his horse walking

alongside the high seat where Step-and-a-Half sat perched

listlessly with a long-lashed oxwhip in his hand. Father had

talked for a few minutes, and had ridden back scowling.

"That old scoundrel has got two ten-gallon kegs that haven't

been touched!" he told mother. "Yo' all mustn't water any

more horses out of your barrel Send the boys to Step-and-a-

Half. Yo' all keep what you've got. The horses have got to

have water- to-night it's going to be hell to hold the herd,

and if anybody goes thirsty it'll be the men, not the horses

But yo' all send them to the other wagon, Lassie Mind, now!

Not a drop to anyone."

After father rode away, Buddy crept up and put his two short

arms around mother. "Don't cry. I don't have to drink any

water," he soothed her. He waited a minute and added

optimistically, "Dere's a BI--IG wiver comin' pitty soon.

Oxes smells water a hunerd miles. Ezra says so. An' las'

night Crumpy was snuffin' an' snuffin'. I saw 'im do it. He

smelt a BIG wiver. THAT bi-ig!" He spread his short arms as

wide apart as they would reach, and smiled tremulously.

Mother squeezed Buddy so hard that he grunted.

"Dear little man, of course there is. WE don't mind, do we?

I-was feeling sorry for the poor cattle."

"De're firsty," Buddy stated solemnly, his eyes big. "De're

bawlin' fer a drink of water. I guess de're AWFUL firsty.

Dere's a big wiver comin' now Crumpy smelt a big wiver."

Buddy's mother stared across the arid plain parched into

greater barrenness by the heat that had been unremitting for

the past week. Buddy's faith in the big river she could not

share. Somehow they had drifted off the trail marked on the

map drawn by George Williams.

Williams had warned them to carry as much water as possible

in barrels, as a precaution against suffering if they failed

to strike water each night. He had told them that water was

scarce, but that his cowboy scouts and the deep-worn buffalo

trails had been able to bring him through with water at every

camp save two or three. The Staked Plains, he said, would be

the hardest drive. And this was the Staked Plains--and it was

hard driving!

Buddy did not know all that until afterwards, when he heard

father talk of the drive north. But he would have remembered

that day and the night that followed, even though he had

never heard a word about it. The bawling of the herd became a

doleful chant of misery. Even the phlegmatic oxen that drew

the wagons bawled and slavered while they strained forward,

twisting their heads under the heavy yokes. They stopped

oftener than usual to rest, and when Buddy was permitted to

walk with the perspiring Ezra by the leaders, he wondered why

the oxen's eyes were red, like Dulcie's when she had one of

her crying spells.

At night the cowboys did not tie their horses and sit down

while they ate, but stood by their mounts and bolted food

hurriedly, one eye always on the restless cattle, that walked

around and around, and would neither eat nor lie down, but

lowed incessantly. Once a few animals came close enough to

smell the water in a bucket where Frank Davis was watering

his sweat-streaked horse, and Step-and-a-Half's wagon was

almost upset before the maddened cattle could be driven back

to the main herd.

"No use camping," Bob Birnie told the boys gathered around

Step-and-a-Half's Dutch ovens. "The cattle won't stand. We'll

wear ourselves and them out trying to hold 'em-they may as

well be hunting water as running in circles. Step-and-a-Half,

keep your cooked grub handy for the boys, and yo' all pack up

and pull out. We'll turn the cattle loose and follow. If

there's any water in this damned country they'll find it."

Years afterwards, Buddy learned that his father had sent men

out to hunt water, and that they had not found any. He was

ten when this was discussed around a spring roundup fire, and

he had studied the matter for a few minutes and then had

spoken boldly his mind.

"You oughta kept your horses as thirsty as the cattle was,

and I bet they'd a' found that water," he criticized, and

was sent to bed for his tactlessness. Bob Birnie himself had

thought of that afterwards, and had excused the oversight by

saying that he had depended on the map, and had not foreseen

a three-day dry drive.

However that may be, that night was a night of panicky

desperation. Ezra walked beside the oxen and shouted and

swung his lash, and the oxen strained forward bellowing so

that not even Dulcie could sleep, but whimpered fretfully in

her mother's arms. Buddy sat up wide-eyed and watched for the

big river, and tried not to be a 'fraid-cat and cry like

Dulcie.

It was long past starry midnight when a little wind puffed

out of the darkness and the oxen threw up their heads and

sniffed, and put a new note into their "M-baw-aw-aw-mm!"

They swung sharply so that the wind blew straight into the

front of the wagon, which lurched forward with a new impetus.

"Glo-ory t' Gawd, Missy! dey smells watah, sho 's yo' bawn!"

sobbed Ezra as he broke into a trot beside the wheelers "

'Tain't fur--lookit dat-ah huhd a-goin' it! No 'm, Missy, DEY

ain't woah out--dey smellin' watah an' dey'm gittin' TO it!

'Tain't fur, Missy."

Buddy clung to the back of the seat and stared round-eyed

into the gloom. He never forgot that lumpy shadow which was

the herd, traveling fast in dust that obscured the nearest

stars. The shadow humped here and there as the cattle crowded

forward at a shuffling half trot, the click--awash of their

shambling feet treading close on one another. The rapping

tattoo of wide-spread horns clashing against wide-spread

horns filled him with a formless terror, so that he let go

the seat to clutch at mother's dress. He was not afraid of

cattle-they were as much a part of his world as were Ezra and

the wagon and the camp-fires-but he trembled with the dread

which no man could name for him.

These were not the normal, everyday sounds of the herd. The

herd had somehow changed from plodding animals to one

overwhelming purpose that would sweep away anything that came

in its path. Two thousand parched throats and dust-dry

tongues-and suddenly the smell of water that would go

gurgling down two thousand eager gullets, and every

intervening second a cursed delay against which the cattle

surged blindly. It was the mob spirit, when the mob was

fighting for its very existence.

Over the bellowing of the cattle a yelling cowboy now and

then made himself heard. The four oxen straining under their

yokes broke into a lumbering gallop lest they be outdistanced

by the herd, and Dulcie screamed when the wagon lurched

across a dry wash and almost upset, while Ezra plied the ox-

whip and yelled frantically at first one ox and then another,

inventing names for the new ones. Buddy drew in his breath

and held it until the wagon rolled on four wheels instead of

two,but he did not scream.

Still the big river did not come. It seemed to Buddy that the

cattle would never stop running. Tangled in the terror was

Ezra's shouting as he ran alongside the wagon and called to

Missy that it was "Dat ole Crumpy actin' the fool", and that

the wagon wouldn't upset. "No'm, dey's jest in a hurry to git

dere fool haids sunk to de eyes in dat watah. Dey ain't

aimin' to run away--no'm, dish yer ain't no stampede!"

Perhaps Buddy dozed. The next thing he remembered, day was

breaking, with the sun all red, seen through the dust. The

herd was still going, but now it was running and somehow the

yoked oxen were keeping close behind, lumbering along with

heads held low and the sweat reeking from their spent bodies.

Buddy heard dimly his mother's sharp command to Ezra:

"Stand back, Ezra! We're not going to be caught in that

terrible trap. They're piling over the bank ahead of us. Get

away from the leaders. I am going to shoot."

Buddy crawled up a little higher on the blankets behind the

seat, and saw mother steady herself and aim the rifle

straight at Crumpy. There was the familiar, deafening roar,

the acrid smell of black powder smoke, and Crumpy went down

loosely, his nose rooting the trampled ground for a space

before the gun belched black smoke again and Crumpy's yoke-

mate pitched forward. The wagon stopped so abruptly that

Buddy sprawled helplessly on his back like an overturned

beetle.

He saw mother stand looking down at the wheelers, that backed

and twisted their necks under their yokes. Her lips were set

firmly together, and her eyes were bright with purple hollows

beneath. She held the rifle for a moment, then set the butt

of it on the "jockey box" just in front of the dashboard.

The wheelers, helpless between the weight of the wagon behind

and the dead oxen in front, might twist their necks off but

they could do no damage.

"Unyoke the wheelers, Ezra, and let the poor creatures have

their chance at the water," she cried sharply, and Ezra,

dodging the horns of the frantic brutes, made shift to obey.

Fairly on the bank of the sluggish stream with its flood-worn

channel and its treacherous patches of quicksand, the wagon

thus halted by the sheer nerve and quick-thinking of mother

became a very small island in a troubled sea of weltering

backs and tossing horns and staring eyeballs. Riders shouted

and lashed unavailingly with their quirts, trying to hold

back the full bulk of the herd until the foremost had slaked

their thirst and gone on. But the herd was crazy for the

water, and the foremost were plunged headlong into the soft

mud where they mired, trampled under the hoofs of those who

came crowding from behind.

Someone shouted, close to the wagon yet down the bank at the

edge of the water. The words were indistinguishable, but a

warning was in the voice. On the echo of that cry, a man

screamed twice.

"Ezra!" cried mother fiercely. "It's Frank Davis--they've got him

down, somehow. Climb over the backs of the cattle--There's no

other way--and GET HIM!"

"Yas'm, Missy!" Ezra called back, and then Buddy saw him go

over the herd, scrambling, jumping from back to back.

Buddy remembered that always, and the funeral they had later

in the day, when the herd was again just trail-weary cattle

feeding hungrily on the scanty grass. Down at the edge of the

creek the carcasses of many dead animals lay half-buried in

the mud. Up on a little knoll where a few stunted trees grew,

the negroes dug a long, deep hole. Mother's eyes were often

filled with tears that day, and the cowboys scarcely talked

at all when they gathered at the chuckwagon.

After a while they all went to the hole which the negroes had

dug, and there was a long Something wrapped up in canvas.

Mother wore her best dress which was black, and father and

all the boys had shaved their faces and looked very sober.

The negroes stood back in a group by themselves, and every

few minutes Buddy saw them draw their tattered shirtsleeves

across their faces. And father--Buddy looked once and saw two

tears running down father's cheeks. Buddy was shocked into a

stony calm. He had never dreamed that fathers ever cried.

Mother read out of her Bible, and all the boys held their

hats in front of them, with their hands clasped, and looked

at the ground while she read. Then mother sang. She sang,

"We shall meet beyond the river", which Buddy thought was a

very queer song, because they were all there but Frank Davis;

then she sang "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Buddy sang too,

piping the notes accurately, with a vague pronunciation of

the words and a feeling that somehow he was helping mother.

After that they put the long, canvas-wrapped Something down

in the hole, and mother said "Our Father Who Art in Heaven ",

with Buddy repeating it uncertainly after her and pausing to

say "TRETHpatheth" very carefully. Then mother picked up

Dulcie in her arms, took Buddy by the hand and walked slowly

back to the wagon, and would not let him turn to see what the

boys were doing.

It was from that day that Buddy missed Frank Davis, who had

mysteriously gone to Heaven, according to mother. Buddy's

interest in Heaven was extremely keen for a time, and he

asked questions which not even mother could answer. Then his

memory of Frank Davis blurred. But never his memory of that

terrible time when the Tomahawk outfit lost five hundred

cattle in the dry drive and the stampede for water.

CHAPTER THREE: SOME INDIAN LORE

Buddy knew Indians as he knew cattle, horses, rattlesnakes

and storms--by having them mixed in with his everyday life.

He couldn't tell you where or when he had learned that

Indians are tricky. Perhaps his first ideas on that subject

were gleaned from the friendly tribes who lived along the

Chisolm Trail and used to visit the chuck-wagon, their

blankets held close around them and their eyes glancing

everywhere while they grinned and talked and pointed--and

ate. Buddy used to sit in the chuck-wagon, out of harm's way,

and watch them eat.

Step-and-a-Half had a way of entertaining Indians which never

failed to interest Buddy, however often he witnessed it. When

Step-and-a-Half glimpsed Indians coming afar off, he would

take his dishpan and dump into it whatever scraps of food

were left over from the preceding meal. He used to say that

Indians could smell grub as far as a buzzard can smell a dead

carcase, and Buddy believed it, for they always arrived at

meal time or shortly afterwards. Step-and-a-Half would make a

stew, if there were scraps enough. If the gleanings were

small, he would use the dishwater--he was a frugal man--and

with that for the start-off he would make soup, which the

Indians gulped down with great relish and many gurgly sounds.

Buddy watched them eat what he called pig-dinner. When Step-

and-a-Half was not looking he saw them steal whatever their

dirty brown hands could readily snatch and hide under their

blankets. So he knew from very early experience that Indians

were not to be trusted.

Once, when he had again strayed too far from camp, some

Indians riding that way saw him, and one leaned and lifted

him from the ground and rode off with him. Buddy did not

struggle much. He saved his breath for the long, shrill yell

of cow-country. Twice he yodled before the Indian clapped a

hand over his mouth.

Father and some of the cowboys heard and came after, riding

hard and shooting as they came. Buddy's pink apron fluttered

a signal flag in the arms of his captor, and so it happened

that the bullets whistled close to that particular Indian. He

gathered a handful of calico between Buddy's shoulders, held

him aloft like a puppy, leaned far over and deposited him on

the ground.

Buddy rolled over twice and got up, a little dizzy and very

indignant, and shouted to father, "Shoot a sunsyguns!"

From that time Buddy added hatred to his distrust of Indians.

From the time when he was four until he was thirteen Buddy's

life contained enough thrills to keep a movie-mad boy of to-

day sitting on the edge of his seat gasping enviously through

many a reel, but to Buddy it was all rather humdrum and

monotonous.

What he wanted to do was to get out and hunt buffalo. Just

herding horses, and watching out for Indians, and killing

rattlesnakes was what any boy in the country would be doing.

Still, Buddy himself achieved now and then a thrill.

There was one day, when he stood heedlessly on a ridge

looking for a dozen head of lost horses in the draws below.

It was all very well to explain missing horses by the

conjecture that the Injuns must have got them, but Buddy

happened to miss old Rattler with the others. Rattler had

come north with the trail herd, and he was wise beyond the

wisdom of most horses. He would drive cattle out of the brush

without a rider to guide him, if only you put a saddle on

him. He had helped Buddy to mount his back--when Buddy was

much smaller than now--by lowering his head until Buddy

straddled it, and then lifting it so that Buddy slid down his

neck and over his withers to his back. Even now Buddy

sometimes mounted that way when no one was looking. Many

other lovable traits had Rattler, and to lose him would be a

tragedy to the family.

So Buddy was on the ridge, scanning all the deep little

washes and draws, when a bullet PING-G-GED over his head.

Buddy caught the bridle reins and pulled his horse into the

shelter of rocks, untied his rifle from the saddle and crept

back to reconnoitre. It was the first time he had ever been

shot at--except in the army posts, when the Indians had

"broken out",--and the aim then was generally directed toward

his vicinity rather than his person.

An Indian on a horse presently appeared cautiously from

cover, and Buddy, trembling with excitement, shot wild; but

not so wild that the Indian could afford to scoff and ride

closer. After another ineffectual shot at Buddy, he whipped

his horse down the ridge, and made for Bannock creek.

Buddy at thirteen knew more of the wiles of Indians than does

the hardiest Indian fighter on the screen to-day. Father had

warned him never to chase an Indian into cover, where others

would probably be waiting for him. So he stayed where he was,

pretty well hidden in the rocks, and let the bullets he

himself had "run" in father's bullet-mold follow the enemy

to the fringe of bushes. His last shot knocked the Indian off

his horse--or so it looked to Buddy. He waited for a long

time, watching the brush and thinking what a fool that Indian

was to imagine Buddy would follow him down there. After a

while he saw the Indian's horse climbing the slope across the

creek. There was no rider.

Buddy rode home without the missing horses, and did not tell

anyone about the Indian, though his thoughts would not leave

the subject.

He wondered what mother would think of it. Mother's interests

seemed mostly confined to teaching Buddy and Dulcie what they

were deprived of learning in schools, and to play the piano--

a wonderful old square piano that had come all the way from

Scotland to the Tomahawk ranch, the very frontier of the

West.

Mother was a wonderful woman, with a soft voice and a slight

Scotch accent, and wit; and a knowledge of things which were

little known in the wilderness. Buddy never dreamed then how

strangely culture was mixed with pure savagery in his life.

To him the secret regret that he had not dared ride into the

bushes to scalp the Indian he believed he had shot, and the

fact that his hands were straining at the full chords of the

ANVIL CHORUS on that very evening, was not even to be

considered unusual. Still, certain strains of that classic

were always afterward associated in his mind with the

shooting of the Indian--if he had really shot him.

While he counted the time with a conscientious regard for the

rests, he debated the wisdom of telling mother, and decided

that perhaps he had better keep that matter to himself, like

a man.

CHAPTER FOUR: BUDDY GIVES WARNING

Buddy swung down from his horse, unsaddled it and went

staggering to the stable wall with the burden of a stock-

saddle much too big for him. He had to stand on his boot-toes

to reach and pull the bridle down over the ears of Whitefoot,

which turned with an air of immense relief into the corral

gate and the hay piled at the further end. Buddy gave him one

preoccupied glance and started for the cabin, walking with

the cowpuncher's peculiar, bowlegged gait which comes of

wearing chaps and throwing out the knees to overcome the

stiffness of the leather. At thirteen Buddy was a cowboy from

hat-crown to spurs-and at thirteen Buddy gloried in the fact.

To-day, however, his mind was weighted with matters of more

importance than himself.

"The Utes are having a war-dance, mother," he announced when

he had closed the stout door of the kitchen behind him. "They

mean it this time. I lay in the brush and watched them last

night." He stood looking at his mother speculatively, a

little grin on his face. "I told you, you can't change an

Injun by learning him to eat with a knife and fork," he

added. "Colorou ain't any whiter than he was before you set

out to learn him manners. He was hoppin' higher than any of

'em."

"Teach, Buddy, not learn. You know better than to say 'learn

him manners.'"

"Teach him manners," Buddy corrected himself obediently. "I

was thinking more about what I saw than about grammar.

Where's father? I guess I'd better tell him. He'll want to

get the stock out of the mountains, I should think."

"Colorou will send me word before they take the warpath,"

mother observed reassuringly. "He always has. I gave him a

whole pound of tea and a blue ribbon the last time he was

here,"

"Yes, and the last time they broke out they got away with

more 'n a hundred head of cattle. You got to Laramie, all

right, but he didn't tell father in time to make a roundup

back in the foothills. They're DANCING, mother!"

"Well, I suppose We're due for an outbreak," sighed mother.

"Colorou says he can't hold his young men off when some of

the tribe have been killed. He himself doesn't countenance

the stealing and the occasional killing of white men. There

are bad Indians and good ones."

"I know a couple of good ones," Buddy murmured as he made for

the wash basin. "It's the bad ones that were doing the

dancing, mother," he flung over his shoulder. "And if I was

you I'd take Dulcie and the cats and hit for Laramie. Colorou

might get busy and forget to send word!"

"If I WAS you?" Mother came up and nipped his ear between

thumb and finger. "Robert, I am discouraged over you. All

that I teach you in the winter seems to evaporate from your

mind during the summer when you go out riding with the boys."

Buddy wiped his face with an up-and-down motion on the roller

towel and clanked across to the cupboard which he opened

investigatively. "Any pie?" he questioned as he peered into

the corners. "Say, if I had the handling of those Utes,

mother, I'd fix 'em so they wouldn't be breaking out every

few months and making folks leave their homes to be pawed

over and burnt, maybe." He found a jar of fresh doughnuts and

took three.

"They'll tromp around on your flower-beds--it just makes me

SICK when I think how they'll muss things up around here! I

wish now," He blurted unthinkingly, "that I hadn't killed the

Injun that stole Rattler."

"Buddy! Not YOU." His mother made a swift little run across

the kitchen and caught him on his lean, hard-muscled young

shoulders. "You--you baby! What did you do? You didn't harm

an Indian, did you, laddie?"

Buddy tilted his head downward so that she could not look

into his eyes. "I dunno as I harmed him--much," he said,

wiping doughnut crumbs from his mouth with one hasty sweep of

his forearm. "But his horse came outa the brush, and he

never. I guess I killed him, all right. Anyway, mother, I had

to. He took a shot at me first. It was the day we lost

Rattler and the bronks," He added accurately.

Mother did not say anything for a minute, and Buddy hung his

head lower, dreading to see the hurt look which he felt was

in her eyes.

"I have to pack a gun when I ride anywhere," he reminded her

defensively. "It ain't to balance me on the horse, either. If

Injuns take in after me, the gun's so I can shoot. And a

feller don't shoot up in the air--and if an Injun is hunting

trouble he oughta expect that maybe he might get shot

sometime. You--you wouldn't want me to just run and let them

catch me, would you?"

Mother's hand slipped up to his head and pressed it against

her breast so that Buddy heard her heart beating steady and

sweet and true. Mother wasn't afraid--never, never!

"I know--it's the dreadful necessity of defending our lives.

But you're so young--just mother's baby man!

Buddy looked up at her then, a laugh twinkling in his eyes.

After all, mother understood.

"I'm going to be your baby man always if you want me to,

mother," He whispered, closing his arms around her neck in a

sturdy hug. "But I'm father's horse-wrangler, too. And a

horse-wrangler has got to hold up his end. I--I didn't want

to kill anybody, honest. But Injuns are different. You kill

rattlers, and they ain't as mean as Injuns. That one I shot

at was shooting at me before I even so much as knew there was

one around. I just shot back. Father would, or anybody else."

"I know--I know," she conceded, the tender womanliness of her

sighing over the need. In the next moment she was all mother,

ready to fight for her young. "Buddy, never, never ride

ANYWHERE without your rifle! And a revolver, too--be sure

that it is in perfect condition. And--have you a knife?

You're so LITTLE!" she wailed. "But father will need you, and

he'll take care of you--and Colorou would not let you be hurt

if he knew. But--Buddy, you must be careful, and always

watching--never let them catch you off your guard. I shall be

in Laramie before you and father and the boys, I suppose, if

the Indians really do break out. And you must promise me--"

"I'll promise, mother. And don't you go and trust old Colorou

an inch. He was jumping higher than any of 'em, and shaking

his tomahawk and yelling--he'd have scalped me right there if

he'd seen me watching 'em. Mother, I'm going to find father

and tell him. And you may as well be packing up, and--don't

leave my guitar for them to smash, will you, mother?"

His mother laughed then and pushed him toward the door. She

had an idea of her own and she did not want to be hindered

now in putting it into action. Up the creek, in the bank

behind a clump of willows, was a small cave--or a large

niche, one might call it--where many household treasures

might be safely hidden, if one went carefully, wading in the

creek to hide the tracks. She followed Buddy out, and called

to Ezra who was chopping wood with a grunt for every fall of

the axe and many rest--periods in the shade of the cottonwood

tree.

At the stable, Buddy looked back and saw her talking

earnestly to Ezra, who stood nodding his head in complete

approval. Buddy's knowledge of women began and ended with his

mother. Therefore, to him all women were wonderful creatures

whom men worshipped ardently because they were created for

the adoration of lesser souls. Buddy did not know what his

mother was going to do, but he was sure that whatever she did

would be right; so he hoisted his saddle on the handiest

fresh horse, and loped off to drive in the remuda, feeling

certain that his father would move swiftly to save his cattle

that ranged back in the foothills, and that the saddle horses

would be wanted at a moment's notice.

Also, he reasoned, the range horses (mares and colts and the

unbroken geldings) would not be left to the mercy of the

Indians. He did not quite know how his father would manage

it, but he decided that he would corral the REMUDA first, and

then drive in the other horses, that fed scattered in

undisturbed possession of a favorite grassy creek-bottom

farther up the Platte.

The saddle horses, accustomed to Buddy's driving, were easily

corralled. The other horses were fat and "sassy" and resented

his coming among them with the shrill whoop of authority.

They gave him a hot hour's riding before they finally bunched

and went tearing down the river bottom toward the ranch. Even

so, Buddy left two of the wildest careening up a narrow

gulch. He had not attempted to ride after them; not because

he was afraid of Indians, for he was not. The war-dance held

every young buck and every old one in camp beyond the Pass.

But the margin of safety might be narrow, and Buddy was

taking no chances that day.

When he was convinced that it was impossible for one boy to

be in half a dozen places at once, and that the cowboys would

be needed to corral the range bunch, Buddy whooped them all

down the creek below the home ranch and let them go just as

his father came riding up to the corral.

"They're war-dancing, father," Buddy shouted eagerly,

slipping off his horse and wiping away the trickles of

perspiration with a handkerchief not much redder than his

face. "I drove all the horses down, so they'd be handy. Them

range horses are pretty wild. There was two I couldn't get.

What'll I do now?"

Bob Birnie looked at his youngest rider and smoothed his

beard with one hand. "You're an ambitious lad, Buddy. It's

the Utes you're meaning--or is it the horses?"

Buddy lifted his head and stared at his father disapprovingly.

"Colorou is going to break out. I know. They've got their war

paint all on and they're dancing. I saw them myself. I was

going after the gloves Colorou s squaw was making for

me,--but I didn't get 'em. I laid in the brush and watched

'em dance." He stopped and looked again doubtfully at his

father. "I thought you might want to get the cattle outa the

way, he added. "I thought I could save some time--"

"You're sure about the paint?"

"Yes, I'm sure. And Colorou was just a-going it with his war

bonnet on and shaking his tomahawk and yelling--"

"Ye did well, lad. We'll be leaving for Big Creek to-night,

so run away now and rest yourself."

"Oh, and can I go?" Buddy's voice was shrill with eagerness.

"I'll need you, lad, to look after the horses. It will give

me one more hand with the cattle. Now go tell Step-and-a-Half

to make ready for a week on the trail, and to have supper

early so he can make his start with the rest."

Buddy walked stiffly away to the cook's cabin where Step-and-

a-Half sat leisurely gouging the worst blemishes out of soft,

old potatoes with a chronic tendency to grow sprouts, before

he peeled them for supper His crippled leg was thrust out

straight, his hat was perched precariously over one ear

because of the slanting sun rays through the window, and a

half-smoked cigarette waggled uncertainly in the corner of

his mouth while he sang dolefully a most optimistic ditty of

the West:

"O give me a home where the buff-alo roam,

Where the deer and the antelope play,

Where never is heard a discouraging

word And the sky is not cloudy all day."

"You're going to hear a discouraging word right now," Buddy

broke in ruthlessly upon the song. Whereupon, with a bit of

importance in his voice and in his manner, he proceeded to

spoil Step-and-a-Half's disposition and to deepen, if that

were possible, his loathing of Indians. Too often had he made

dubious soup of his dishwater and the leavings from a roundup

crew's dinner, and watched blanketed bucks smack lips over

the mess, to run from them now without feeling utterly

disgusted with life. Step-and-a-Half's vituperations could be

heard above the clatter of pots and pans as he made ready for

the journey.

That night's ride up the pass through the narrow range of

high-peaked hills to the Tomahawk's farthest range on Big

Creek was a tedious affair to Buddy. A man had been sent on a

fast horse to warn the nearest neighbor, who in turn would

warn the next,--until no settler would be left in ignorance

of his danger. Ezra was already on the trail to Laramie, with

mother and Dulcie and the cats and a slat box full of

chickens, and a young sow with little pigs.

Buddy, whose word no one had questioned, who might pardonably

have considered himself a hero, was concerned chiefly with

his mother's flower garden which he had helped to plant and

had watered more or less faithfully with creek water carried

in buckets. He was afraid the Indians would step on the

poppies and the phlox, and trample down the four o'clocks

which were just beginning to branch out and look nice and

bushy, and to blossom. The scent of the four o'clocks had

been in his nostrils when he came out at dusk with his fur

overcoat which mother had told him must not be left behind.

Buddy himself merely liked flowers: but mother talked to them

and kissed them just for love, and pitied them if Buddy

forgot and let them go thirsty. He would have stayed to fight

for mother's flower garden, if it would have done any good.

He was thinking sleepily that next year he would plant

flowers in boxes that could be carried to the cave if the

Indians broke out again, when Tex Farley poked him in the

ribs and told him to wake up or he'd fall off his horse. It

was a weary climb to the top of the range that divided the

valley of Big Creek from the North Platte, and a wearier

climb down. Twice Buddy caught himself on the verge of

toppling out of the saddle. For after all he was only a

thirteen-year Old boy, growing like any other healthy young

animal. He had been riding hard that day and half of the

preceding night when he had raced back from the Reservation

to give warning of the impending outbreak. He needed sleep,

and nature was determined that he should have it.

CHAPTER FIVE: BUDDY RUNS TRUE TO TYPE

One never could predict with any certainty how long Indians

would dance before they actually took the trail of murder and

pillage. So much depended upon the Medicine, so much on signs

and portents. It was even possible that they might, for some

mysterious reason unknown to their white neighbors, decide at

the last moment to bide their time. The Tomahawk outfit

worked from dawn until dark, and combed the foothills of the

Snowies hurriedly, riding into the most frequented, grassy

basins and wide canyons where the grass was lush and sweet

and the mountain streams rushed noisily over rocks. As fast

as the cattle were gathered they were pushed hastily toward

the Platte, And though the men rode warily with rifles as

handy as their ropes, they rode in peace.

Buddy, proud of his job, counting himself as good a man as

any of them, became a small riding demon after rebellious

saddle horses, herding them away from thick undergrowth that

might, for all he knew, hold Indians waiting a chance to

scalp him, driving the REMUDA close to the cabins when night

fell, because no man could be spared for night herding,

sleeping lightly as a cat beside a mouse hole. He did not say

much, perhaps because everyone was too busy to talk, himself

included.

Men rode in at night dog-weary, pulled their saddles and

hurried stiffly to the cabin where Step-and-a-Half was

showing his true worth as a cook who could keep the coffee-

pot boiling and yet be ready to pack up and go at the first

rifle-shot. They would bolt down enormous quantities of

bannock and boiled beef, swallow their coffee hot enough to

scald a hog, and stretch themselves out immediately to sleep.

Buddy would be up and on his horse in the clear starlight

before dawn, with a cup of coffee swallowed to hearten him

for the chilly ride after the remuda. Even with the warmth of

the coffee his teeth would chatter just at first, and he

would ride with his thin shoulders lifted and a hand in a

pocket. He could not sing or whistle to keep himself company.

He must ride in silence until he had counted every dark,

moving shape and knew that the herd was complete, then ease

them quietly to camp.

On the fourth morning he rode anxiously up the valley,

fearing that the horses had been stolen in the night, yet

hoping they had merely strayed up the creek to find fresh

pastures. A light breeze that carried the keen edge of frost

made his nose tingle. His horse trotted steadily forward, as

keen on the trail as Buddy himself; keener, for he would be

sure to give warning of danger. So they rounded a bend in the

creek and came upon the scattered fringe of the remuda

cropping steadily at the meadow grass there.

Bud circled them, glancing now and then at the ridge beyond

the valley. It seemed somehow unnatural--lower, with the

stars showing along its wooded crest in a row, as if there

were no peaks. Then quite suddenly he knew that the ridge was

the same, and that the stars he saw were little, breakfast

camp-fires. His heart gave a jump when he realized how many

little fires there were, and knew that the dance was over.

The Indians had left the reservation and had crossed the

ridge yesterday, and had camped there to wait for the dawn.

While he gathered his horses together he guessed how old

Colorou had planned to catch the Tomahawk riders when they

left camp and scattered, two by two, on "Circle." He had held

his band well out of sight and sound of the Big Creek cabin,

and if the horses had not strayed up the creek in the night

he would have caught the white men off their guard.

Buddy looked often over his shoulder while he drove the

horses down the creek. It seemed stranger than luck, that he

had been compelled to ride so far on this particular morning;

as if mother's steadfast faith in prayer and the guardianship

of angels was justified by actual facts. Still, Buddy was too

hard-headed to assume easily that angels had driven the

horses up the creek so that he would have to ride up there

and discover the Indian fires. If angels could do that, why

hadn't they stopped Colorou from going on the warpath? It

would have been simpler, in Buddy's opinion.

He did not mention the angel problem to his father, however.

Bob Birnie was eating breakfast with his men when Buddy rode

up to the cabin and told the news. The boys did not say

anything much, but they may have taken bigger bites by way of

filling their stomachs in less time than usual.

"I'll go see for myself," said Bob Birnie. "You boys saddle

up and be ready to start. If it's Indians, we'll head for

Laramie and drive everything before us as we go. But the lad

may be wrong." He took the reins from Buddy, mounted, and

rode away, his booted feet hanging far below Buddy's short

stirrups.

Speedily he was back, and the scowl on his face told plainly

enough that Buddy had not been mistaken.

"They're coming off the ridge already," he announced grimly.

"I heard their horses among the rocks up there. They think to

come down on us at sunrise. There'll be too many for us to

hold off, I'm thinking. Get ye a fresh horse, Buddy, and

drive the horses down the creek fast as ye can."

Buddy uncoiled his rope and ran with his mouth full to do as

he was told. He did not think he was scared, exactly, but he

made three throws to get the horse he wanted, blaming the

poor light for his ill luck; and then found himself in

possession of a tall, uneasy brown that Dick Grimes had

broken and sometimes rode. Buddy would have turned him loose

and caught another, but the horses had sensed the suppressed

excitement of the men and were circling and snorting in the

half light of dawn; so Buddy led out the brown, pulled the

saddle from the sweaty horse that had twice made the trip up

the creek, and heaved it hastily on the brown's back. Dick

Grimes called to him, to know if he wanted any help, and

Buddy yelled, "No!"

"Here they come--damn 'em--turn the bunch loose and ride!" called

Bob Birnie as a shrill, yelling war-whoop, like the yapping of

many coyotes, sounded from the cottonwoods that bordered the

creek. "Yuh all right, Buddy?"

"Yeah--I'm a-comin'," shrilled Buddy, hastily looping the

latigo. Just then the sharp staccato of rifle-shots mingled

with the whooping of the Indians. Buddy was reaching for the

saddle horn when the brown horse ducked and jerked loose.

Before Buddy realized what was happening the brown horse, the

herd and all the riders were pounding away down the valley,

the men firing back at the cottonwoods.

In the dust and clamor of their departure Buddy stood

perfectly still for a minute, trying to grasp the full

significance of his calamity. Step-and-a-Half had packed

hastily and departed ahead of them all. His father and the

cowboys were watching the cottonwood grove many rods to

Buddy's right and well in the background, and they would not

glance his way. Even if they did they would not see him, and

if they saw him it would be madness to ride back--though

there was not a man among them who would not have wheeled in

his tracks and returned for Buddy in the very face of Colorou

and his band.

From the cottonwoods came the pound of galloping hoofs.

"Angels NOTHING!" Cried Buddy in deep disgust and scuttled

for the cabin.

The cabin, he knew as he ran, was just then the worst place

in the world for a boy who wanted very much to go on living.

Through its gaping doorway he saw a few odds and ends of food

lying on the table, but he dared not stop long enough to get

them. The Indians were thundering down to the corral, and as

he rounded the cabin's corner he glanced back and saw the

foremost riders whipping their horses on the trail of the

fleeing white men. But some, he knew, would stop. Even the

prospect of fresh scalps could not hold the greedy ones from

prowling around a white man's dwelling place. There might be

tobacco or whiskey left behind, or something with color or a

shine to it. Buddy knew well the ways of Indians.

He made for the creek, thinking at first to hide somewhere in

the brush along the bank. Then, fearing the brightening light

of day and the wide space he must cross to reach the first

fringe of brush, he stopped at a dugout cellar that had been

built into the creek bank above high-water mark. There was a

pole-and-dirt roof, and because the dirt sifted down between

the poles whenever the wind blew--which was always--the place

had been crudely sealed inside with split poles overlapping

one another. The ceiling was more or less flat; the roof had

a slight slope. In the middle of the tiny attic thus formed

Buddy managed to worm his body through a hole in the gable

next to the creek.

He wriggled back to the end next the cabin and lay there very

flat and very quiet, peeping out through a half-inch crack,

too wise in the ways of silence to hold his breath until he

must heave a sigh to relieve his lungs. It was hard to

breathe naturally and easily after that swift dash, but

somehow he did it. An Indian had swerved and ridden behind

the cabin, and was leaning and peering in all directions to

see if anyone had remained. Perhaps he suspected an ambush;

Buddy was absolutely certain that the fellow was looking for

him, personally, and that he had seen, Buddy run toward the

creek.

It was not a pleasant thought, and the fact that he knew that

buck Indian by name, and had once traded him a jackknife for

a beautifully tanned wolf skin for his mother, did not make

it pleasanter. Hides-the-face would not let past friendliness

stand in the way of a killing.

Presently Hides-the-face dismounted and tied his horse to a

corner log of the cabin, and went inside with the others to

see what he could find that could be eaten or carried off.

Buddy saw fresh smoke issue from the stone chimney, and

guessed that Step-and-a-Half had left something that could be

cooked. It became evident, in the course of an hour or so,

that his presence was absolutely unsuspected, and Buddy began

to watch them more composedly, silently promising especial

forms of punishment to this one and that one whom he knew.

Most of them had been to the ranch many times, and he could

have called to a dozen of them by name. They had sat in his

father's cabin or stood immobile just within the door, and

had listened while his mother played and sang for them. She

had fed them cakes--Buddy remembered the good things which

mother had given these despicable ones who were looting and

gobbling and destroying like a drove of hogs turned loose in

a garden, and the thought of her wasted kindness turned him

sick with rage. Mother had believed in their friendliness.

Buddy wished that mother could see them setting fire to the

low, log stable and the corral, and swarming in and out of

the cabin.

Painted for war they were, with red stripes across their

foreheads, ribs outlined in red which, when they loosened

their blankets as the sun warmed them, gave them a fantastic

likeness to the skeletons Buddy wished they were; red stripes

on their arms, the number showing their rank in the tribe;

open-seated, buckskin breeches to their knees where they met

the tightly wrapped leggings; moccasins laced snugly at the

ankle--they were picturesque enough to any eyes but Buddy's.

He saw the ghoulish greed in their eyes, heard it in their

voices when they shouted to one another; and he hated them

even more than he feared them.

Much that they said he understood. They were cursing the

Tomahawk outfit, chiefly because the men had not waited there

to be surprised and killed. They cursed his father in

particular, and were half sorry that they had not ridden on

in pursuit with the others. They hoped no white man would

ride alive to Laramie. It made cheerful listening to Buddy,

flat on his stomach in the roof of the dugout!

After a while, when the cabin had been gutted of everything

it contained save the crude table and benches, a few Indians

brought burning brands from the stable and set it afire. They

were very busy inside and out, making sure that the flames

took hold properly. Then, when the dry logs began to blaze

and flames licked the edges of the roof, they stood back and

watched it.

Buddy saw Hides-the-face glance speculatively toward the

dugout, and slipped his hand back where he could reach his

six-shooter. He felt pretty certain that they meant to

demolish the dugout next, and he knew exactly what he meant

to do. He had heard men at the posts talk of "selling their

lives dearly ", and that is what he intended to do.

He was not going to be in too much of a hurry; he would wait

until they actually began on the dugout--and when they were

on the bank within a few feet of him, and he saw that there

was no getting away from death, he meant to shoot five

Indians, and himself last of all.

Tentatively he felt of his temple where he meant to place the

muzzle of the gun when there was just one bullet left. It was

so nice and smooth--he wondered if God would really help him

out, if he said Our Father with a pure heart and with faith,

as his mother said one must pray. He was slightly doubtful of

both conditions, when he came to think of it seriously. This

spring he had felt grown-up enough to swear a little at the

horses, sometimes--and he was not sure that shooting the

Indian that time would not be counted a crime by God, who

loved all His creatures. Mother always stuck to it that

Injuns were God's creatures--which brought Buddy squarely

against the incredible assumption that God must love them. He

did not in the least mean to be irreverent, but when he

watched those painted bucks his opinion of God changed

slightly. He decided that he himself was neither pure nor

full of faith, and that he would not pray just yet. He would

let God go ahead and do as He pleased about it; except that

Buddy would never let those Indians get him alive, no matter

what God expected.

Hides-the-face walked over toward the dugout. Buddy crooked

his left arm and laid the gun barrel across it to get a "dead

rest" and leave nothing to chance. Hides-the-face stared at

the dugout, moved to one side--and the muzzle of the gun

followed, keeping its aim directly at the left edge of his

breastbone as outlined with the red paint. Hides-the-face

craned, stepped into the path down the bank and passed out of

range. Buddy gritted his teeth malevolently and waited, his

ears strained to catch and interpret the meaning of every

soft sound made by Hides-the-face's moccasins.

Hides-the-face cautiously pushed open the door of the cellar

and looked in, standing for interminable minutes, as is the

leisurely way of Indians when there is no great need of

haste. Ruddy cautiously lowered his face and peered down like

a mouse from the thatch, but he could not handily bring his

gun to bear upon Hides-the-face, who presently turned back

and went up the path, his shoulder-muscles moving snakishly

under his brown skin as he climbed the bank.

Hides-the-face returned to the others and announced that

there was a place where they could camp. Buddy could not hear

all that he said, and Hides-the-face had his back turned so

that not all of his signs were intelligible; but he gathered

that these particular Indians had chosen or had been ordered

to wait here for three suns, and that the cellar appealed to

Hides-the-face as a shelter in case it stormed.

Buddy did not know whether to rejoice at the news or to

mourn. They would not destroy the dugout, so he need not

shoot himself, which was of course a relief. Still, three

suns meant three days and nights, and the prospect of lying

there on his stomach, afraid to move for that length of time,

almost amounted to the same thing in the end. He did not

believe that he could hold out that long, though of course he

would try pretty hard.

All that day Buddy lay watching through the crack, determined

to take any chance that came his way. None came. The Indians

loitered in the shade, and some slept. But always two or

three remained awake; and although they sat apparently ready

to doze off at any minute, Buddy knew them too well to hope

for such good luck. Two Indians rode in toward evening

dragging a calf that had been overlooked in the roundup; and

having improvidently burned the cabin, the meat was cooked

over the embers which still smouldered in places where knots

in the logs made slow fuel.

Buddy watched them hungrily, wondering how long it took to

starve.

When it was growing dark he tried to keep in mind the exact

positions of the Indians, and to discover whether a guard

would be placed over the camp, or whether they felt safe

enough to sleep without a sentinel. Hides-the-face he had

long ago decided was in charge of the party, and Hides-the-

face was seemingly concerned only with gorging himself on the

half-roasted meat. Buddy hoped he would choke himself, but

Hides-the-face was very good at gulping half-chewed hunks and

finished without disaster.

Then he grunted something to someone in the dark, and there

was movement in the group. Buddy ground his growing

"second" teeth together, clenched his fist and said "Damn it!"

three times in a silent crescendo of rage because he could

neither see nor hear what took place; and immediately he

repented his profanity, remembering that God could hear him.

In Buddy's opinion, you never could be sure about God; He

bestowed mysterious mercies and strange punishments, and His

ways were past finding out. Buddy tipped his palms together

and repeated all the prayers his mother had taught him and

then, with a flash of memory, finished with "Oh, God,

please!" just as mother had done long ago on the dry drive.

After that he meditated uncomfortably for a few minutes and

added in a faint whisper, "Oh, shucks! You don't want to pay

any attention to a fellow cussing a little when he's mad. I

could easy make that up if you helped me out some way."

Buddy believed afterwards that God yielded to persuasion and

decided to give him a chance. For not more than five minutes

passed when a far-off murmur grew to an indefinable roar, and

the wind whooped down off the Snowies so fiercely that even

the dugout quivered a little and rattled dirt down on Buddy

through the poles just over his head.

At first this seemed an unlucky circumstance, for the Indians

came down into the dugout for shelter, and now Buddy was

afraid to breathe in the quiet intervals between the gusts.

Just below him he could hear the occasional mutters of

laconic sentences and grunted answers as the bucks settled

themselves for the night, and he had a short, panicky spell

of fearing that the poles would give way beneath him and drop

him in upon them.

After a while--it seemed hours to Buddy--the wind settled

down to a steady gale. The Indians, so far as he could

determine, were all asleep in the cellar. And Buddy, setting

his teeth hard together, began to slide slowly backward

toward the opening through which he had crawled into the

roof. When he had crawled in he had not noticed the

springiness of the poles, but now his imagination tormented

him with the sensation of sagging and swaying. When his feet

pushed through the opening he had to grit his teeth to hold

himself steady. It seemed as if someone were reaching up in

the dark to catch him by the legs and pull him out. Nothing

happened, however, and after a little he inched backward

until he hung with his elbows hooked desperately inside the

opening, his head and shoulders within and protesting with

every nerve against leaving the shelter.

Buddy said afterwards that he guessed he'd have hung there

until daylight, only he was afraid it was about time to

change guard, and somebody might catch him. But he said he

was scared to let go and drop, because it must have been

pretty crowded in the cellar, and he knew the door was open,

and some buck might be roosting outside handy to be stepped

on. But he knew he had to do something, because if he ever

went to sleep up in that place he'd snore, maybe; and anyway,

he said, he'd rather run himself to death than starve to

death. So he dropped.

It was two days after that when Buddy shuffled into a mining

camp on the ridge just north of Douglas Pass. He was still on

his feet, but they dragged like an old man's. He had walked

twenty-five miles in two nights, going carefully, in fear of

Indians. The first five miles he had waded along the shore of

the creek, he said, in case they might pick up his tracks at

the dugout and try to follow him. He had hidden himself like

a rabbit in the brush through the day, and he had not dared

shoot any meat, wherefore he had not eaten anything.

"I ain't as hungry as I was at first," He grinned

tremulously. "But I guess I better--eat. I don' want--to lose

the--habit--" Then he went slack and a man swearing to hide

his pity picked him up in his arms and carried him into the

tent.

CHAPTER SIX: THE YOUNG EAGLE MUST FLY

"You're of age," said Bob Birnie, sucking hard at his pipe.

"You've had your schooling as your mother wished that you

should have it. You've got the music in your head and your

fingers and your toes, and that's as your mother wished that

you should have.

"Your mother would have you be all for music, and make tunes

out of your own head. She tells me that you have made tunes

and written them down on paper, and that there are those who

would buy them and print copies to sell, with your name at

the top of the page. I'll not say what I think of that--your

mother is an angel among women, and she has taught you the

things she loves herself.

"But my business is with the cattle, and I've had you out

with me since you could climb on the back of a horse. I've

watched you, with the rope and the irons and in the saddle

and all. You've been in tight places that would try the

mettle of a man grown--I mind the time ye escaped Colorou's

band, and we thought ye dead 'til ye came to us in Laramie.

You've showed that you're able to hold your own on the range,

lad. Your mother's all for the music--but I leave it to you.

"Ten thousand dollars I'll give ye, if that's your wish, and

you can go to Europe as she wishes and study and make tunes

for others to play. Or if ye prefer it, I'll brand you a herd

of she stock and let ye go your ways. No son of mine can take

orders from his father after he's a man grown, and I'm not to

the age where I can sit with the pipe from morning to night

and let another run my outfit. I've talked it over with your

mother, and she'll bide by your decision, as I shall do.

"So I put it in a nutshell, Robert. You're twenty-one to-day;

a man grown, and husky as they're made. 'Tis time you faced

the world and lived your life. You've been a good

lad--as lads go." He stopped there to rub his jaw

thoughtfully, perhaps remembering certain incidents in

Buddy's full-flavored past. Buddy--grown to plain Bud among

his fellows--turned red without losing the line of hardness

that had come to his lips.

"You're of legal age to be called a man, and the future's

before ye. I'll give ye five hundred cows with their calves

beside them--you can choose them yourself, for you've a

sharp eye for stock--and you can go where ye will. Or I'll

give ye ten thousand dollars and ye can go to Europe and make

tunes if you're a mind to. And whatever ye choose it'll be

make or break with ye. Ye can sleep on the decision, for

I've no wish that ye should choose hastily and be sorry

after."

Buddy--grown to Bud--lifted a booted foot and laid it across

his other knee and with his forefinger absently whirled the

long-pointed rower on his spur. The hardness at his lips

somehow spread to his eyes, that were bent on the whirring

rower. It was the look that had come into the face of the

baby down on the Staked Plains when Ezra called and called

after he had been answered twice; the look that had held firm

the lips of the boy who had lain very flat on his stomach in

the roof of the dugout and had watched the Utes burning the

cabin.

"There's no need to sleep on it," he said after a minute.

"You've raised me, and spent some money on me--but I've

saved you a man's wages ever since I was ten. If you think

I've evened things up, all right. If you don't, make out your

bill and I'll pay it when I can. There's no reason why you

should give me anything I haven't earned, just because

you're my father. You earned all you've got, and I guess I

can do the same. As you say, I'm a man. I'll go at the future

man fashion. And," he added with a slight flare of the

nostrils, "I'll start in the morning."

"And is it to make tunes for other folks to play?"Bob Birnie

asked after a silence, covertly eyeing him.

"No, sir. There's more money in cattle. I'll make my stake in

the cow-country, same as you've done." He looked up and

grinned a little. "To the devil with your money and your

she-stock! I'll get out all right--but I'll make my own way."

"You're a stubborn fool, Robert. The Scotch now and then

shows itself like that in a man. I got my start from my

father and I'm not ashamed of it. A thousand pounds--and I

brought it to America and to Texas, and got cattle."

Bud laughed and got up, hiding how the talk had struck deep

into the soul of him. "Then I'll go you one better, dad.

I'll get my own start."

"You'll be back home in six months, lad, saying you've

changed your mind," Bob Birnie predicted sharply, stung by

the tone of young Bud. "That," he added grimly, "or for a

full belly and a clean bed to crawl into."

Bud stood licking the cigarette he had rolled to hide an

unaccountable trembling of his fingers. "When I come back

I'll be in a position to buy you out! I'll borrow Skate and

Maverick, if you don't mind, till I get located somewhere."

He paused while he lighted the cigarette. "It's the custom,"

He reminded his father unnecessarily, "to furnish a man a

horse to ride and one to pack his bed, when he's fired."

"Ye've horses of yer own," Bob Birnie retorted, "and you've

no need to borrow."

Bud stood looking down at his father, plainly undecided. "I

don't know whether they're mine or not," he said after a

minute. "I don't know what it cost you to raise me. Figure it

up, if you haven't already, and count the time I've worked

for you. Since you've put me on a business basis, like

raising a calf to shipping age, let's be businesslike about

it. You are good at figuring your profits--I'll leave it to

you. And if you find I've anything coming to me besides my

riding outfit and the clothes I've got, all right; I'll take

horses for the balance."

He walked off with the swing to his shoulders that had always

betrayed him when he was angry, and Bob Birnie gathered his

beard into a handful and held it while he stared after him.

It had been no part of his plan to set his son adrift on the

range without a dollar, but since Bud's temper was up, it

might be a good thing to let him go.

So Bob Birnie went away to confer with his wife, and Bud was

left alone to nurse his hurt while he packed his few

belongings. It did hurt him to be told in that calm, cold-

blooded manner that, now he was of legal age, he would not be

expected to stay on at the Tomahawk. Until his father had

spoken to him about it, Bud had not thought much about what

he would do when his school days were over. He had taken life

as it was presented to him week by week, month by month. He

had fulfilled his mother's hopes and had learned to make

music. He had lived up to his father's unspoken standards of

a cowman. He had made a "Hand" ever since his legs were long

enough to reach the stirrups of a saddle. There was not a

better rider, not a better roper on the range than Bud

Birnie. Morally he was cleaner than most young fellows of his

age. He hated trickery, he reverenced all good women; the bad

ones he pitied because he believed that they sorrowed

secretly because they were not good, because they had missed

somehow their real purpose in life, which was to be wife and

mother. He had, in fact grown up clean and true to type. He

was Buddy, grown to be Bud.

And Buddy, now that he was a man, had been told that he was

not expected to stay at home and help his father, and be a

comfort to his mother. He was like a young eagle which,

having grown wing-feathers that will bear the strain of high

air currents, has been pecked out of the nest. No doubt the

young eagle resents his unexpected banishment, although in

time he would have felt within himself the urge to go. Leave

Bud alone, and soon or late he would have gone--perhaps with

compunctions against leaving home, and the feeling that he

was somehow a disappointment to his parents. He would have

explained to his father, apologized to his mother. As it was,

he resented the alacrity with which his father was pushing

him out.

So he packed his clothes that night, and pushed his guitar

into its case and buckled the strap with a vicious yank, and

went off to the bunkhouse to eat supper with the boys instead

of sitting down to the table where his mother had placed

certain dishes which Buddy loved best--wanting to show in

true woman fashion her love and sympathy for him.

Later--it was after Bud had gone to bed--mother came and had

a long talk with him. She was very sweet and sensible, and

Bud was very tender with her. But she could not budge him

from his determination to go and make his way without a

Birnie dollar to ease the beginning. Other men had started

with nothing and had made a stake, and there was no reason

why he could not do so.

"Dad put it straight enough, and it's no good arguing. I'd

starve before I'd take anything from him. I'm entitled to my

clothes, and maybe a horse or two for the work I've done for

him while I was growing up. I've figured out pretty close

what it cost to put me through the University, and what I was

worth to him during the summers. Father's Scotch--but he

isn't a darned bit more Scotch than I am, mother. Putting it

all in dollars and cents, I think I've earned more than I

cost him. In the winters, I know I earned my board doing

chores and riding line. Many a little bunch of stock I've

saved for him by getting out in the foothills and driving

them down below heavy snowline before a storm. You remember

the bunch of horses I found by watching the magpies--the time

we tied hay in canvas and took it up to them 'til they got

strength enough to follow the trail I trampled in the snow? I

earned my board and more, every winter since I was ten. So I

don't believe I owe dad a cent, when it's all figured out.

"But you've done for me what money can't repay, mother. I'll

always be in debt to you--and I'll square it by being the

kind of a man you've tried to teach me to be. I will, mother.

Dad and the dollars are a different matter. The debt I owe

you will never be paid, but I'm going to make you glad I know

there's a debt. I believe there's a God, because I know there

must have been one to make you! And no matter how far away I

may drift in miles, your Buddy is going to be here with you

always, mother, learning from you all there is of goodness

and sweetness." He held her two hands against his face, and

she felt his cheeks wet beneath her palms. Then he took them

away and kissed them many times, like a lover.

"If I ever have a wife, she's going to have her work cut out

for her," He laughed unsteadily. "She'll have to live up to

you, mother, if she wants me to love her."

"If you have a wife she'll be well-spoiled, young man!

Perhaps it is wise that you should go--but don't you forget

your music, Buddy--and be a good boy, and remember, mother's

going to follow you with her love and her faith in you, and

her prayers."

It may have been that Buddy's baby memory of going north

whenever the trail herd started remained to send Bud

instinctively northward when he left the Tomahawk next

morning. It had been a case of stubborn father and stubborn

son dickering politely over the net earnings of the son from

the time when he was old enough to leave his mother's lap and

climb into a saddle to ride with his father. Three horses and

his personal belongings had been agreed upon between them as

the balance in Bud's favor; and at that, Bob Birnie dryly

remarked, he had been a better investment as a son than most

young fellows, who cost more than they were worth to raise.

Bud did not answer the implied praise, but roped the

Tomahawk's best three horses out of the REMUDA corralled for

him by his father's riders. You should have seen the sidelong

glances among the boys when they learned that Bud, just home

from the University, was going somewhere with all his earthly

possessions and a look in his face that meant trouble!

Two big valises and his blankets he packed on Sunfish, a

deceptively raw-boned young buckskin with much white showing

in his eyes--an ornery looking brute if ever there was one.

Bud's guitar and a mandolin in their cases he tied securely

on top of the pack. Smoky, the second horse, a deep-chested

"mouse" with a face almost human in its expression, he

saddled, and put a lead rope on the third, a bay four-year-

old called Stopper, which was the Tomahawk's best rope-horse

and one that would be missed when fast work was wanted in

branding.

"He sure as hell picked himself three top hawses," a tall

puncher murmured to another. "Wonder where he's headed for?

Not repping--this late in the season."

Bud overheard them, and gave no sign. Had they asked him

directly he could not have told them, for he did not know,

except that somehow he felt that he was going to head north.

Why north, he could not have explained, since cow-country lay

all around him; nor how far north,--for cow-country extended

to the upper boundary of the States, and beyond into Canada.

He left his horses standing by the corral while he went to

the house to tell his mother good-by, and to send a farewell

message to Dulcie, who had been married a year and lived in

Laramie. He did not expect to strike Laramie, he told his

mother when she asked him.

"I'm going till I stop," He explained, with a squeeze of her

shoulders to reassure her. "I guess it's the way you felt,

mother, when you left Texas behind. You couldn't tell where

you folks would wind up. Neither can I. My trail herd is

kinda small, right now; a lot smaller than it will be later

on. But such as it is, it's going to hit the right range

before it stops for good. And I'll write."

He took a doughnut in his hand and a package of lunch to slip

in his pocket, kissed her with much cheerfulness in his

manner and hurried out, his big-rowelled spurs burring on the

porch just twice before he stepped off on the gravel. Telling

mother good-by had been the one ordeal he dreaded, and he was

glad to have it over with.

Old Step-and-a-Half hailed him as he went past the chuck-

house, and came limping out, wiping his hands on his apron

before he shook hands and wished him good luck. Ezra,

pottering around the tool shed, ambled up with the eyes of a

dog that has been sent back home by his master. "Ah shoah do

wish yo' all good fawtune an' health, Marse Buddy," Ezra

quavered. "Ah shoah do. It ain' goin' seem lak de same place--

and Ah shoah do hopes yo' all writes frequent lettahs to yo'

mothah, boy!"

Bud promised that he would, and managed to break away from

Ezra without betraying himself. How, he wondered, did

everyone seem to know that he was going for good, this time?

He had believed that no one knew of it save himself, his

father and his mother; yet everyone else behaved as if they

never expected to see him again. It was disconcerting, and

Bud hastily untied the two led horses and mounted Smoky, the

mouse-colored horse he himself had broken two years before.

His father came slowly up to him, straight-backed and with

the gait of the man who has ridden astride a horse more than

he has walked on his own feet. He put up his hand, gloved for

riding, and Bud changed the lead-ropes from his right hand to

his left, and shook hands rather formally.

"Ye've good weather for travelling," said Bob Birnie

tentatively. "I have not said it before, lad, but when ye own

yourself a fool to take this way of making your fortune, ten

thousand dollars will still be ready to start ye right. I've

no wish to shirk a duty to my family."

Bud pressed his lips together while he listened. "If you keep

your ten thousand till it's called for, you'll be drawing

interest a long time on it," He said. "It's going to be hot

to-day. I'll be getting along."

He lifted the reins, glanced back to see that the two horses

were showing the proper disposition to follow, and rode off

down the deep-rutted road that followed up the creek to the

pass where he had watched the Utes dancing the war dance one

night that he remembered well. If he winced a little at the

familiar landmarks he passed, he still held fast to the

determination to go, and to find fortune somewhere along the

trail of his own making; and to ask help from no man, least

of all his father who had told him to go.

CHAPTER SEVEN: BUD FLIPS A COIN WITH FATE

"I don't think it matters so much where we light, it's

what we do when we get there," said Bud to Smoky, his horse,

one day as they stopped where two roads forked at the base of

a great, outstanding peak that was but the point of a

mountain range. "This trail straddles the butte and takes on

up two different valleys. It's all cow-country--so what do

yuh say, Smoke? Which trail looks the best to you?"

Smoky flopped one ear forward and the other one back, and

switched at a pestering fly. Behind him Sunfish and Stopper

waited with the patience they had learned in three weeks of

continuous travel over country that was rough in spots,

barren in places, with wind and sun and occasional, sudden

thunderstorms to punctuate the daily grind of travel.

Bud drew a half dollar from his pocket and regarded it

meditatively. "They're going fast--we'll just naturally have

to stop pretty soon, or we don't eat," He observed. "Smoke,

you're a quitter. What you want to do is go back--but you

won't get the chance. Heads, we take the right hand trail. I

like it better, anyway--it angles more to the north."

Heads it was, and Bud leaned from the saddle and recovered

the coin, Smoky turning his head to regard his rider

tolerantly. "Right hand goes--and we camp at the first good

water and grass. I can grain the three of you once more

before we hit a town, and that goes for me, too. G'wan,

Smoke, and don't act so mournful."

Smoky went on, following the trail that wound in and out

around the butte, hugging close its sheer sides to avoid a

fifty-foot drop into the creek below. It was new country--Bud

had never so much as seen a map of it to give him a clue to

what was coming. The last turn of the deep-rutted, sandy road

where it left the river's bank and led straight between two

humpy shoulders of rock to the foot of a platter-shaped

valley brought him to a halt again in sheer astonishment.

From behind a low hill still farther to the right, where the

road forked again, a bluish haze of smoke indicated that

there was a town of some sort, perhaps. Farther up the valley

a brownish cloud hung low-a roundup, Bud knew at a glance. He

hesitated. The town, if it were a town, could wait; the

roundup might not. And a job he must have soon, or go hungry.

He turned and rode toward the dust-cloud, came shortly to a

small stream and a green grass-plot, and stopped there long

enough to throw the pack off Sunfish, unsaddle Smoky and

stake them both out to graze. Stopper he saddled, then knelt

and washed his face, beat the travel dust off his hat, untied

his rope and coiled it carefully, untied his handkerchief and

shook it as clean as he could and knotted it closely again.

One might have thought he was preparing to meet a girl; but

the habit of neatness dated back to his pink-apron days and

beyond, the dirt and dust meant discomfort.

When he mounted Stopper and loped away toward the dust-cloud,

he rode hopefully, sure of himself, carrying his range

credentials in his eyes, in his perfect saddle-poise, in the

tan on his face to his eyebrows, and the womanish softness of

his gloved hands, which had all the sensitive flexibility of

a musician.

His main hope was that the outfit was working short-handed;

and when he rode near enough to distinguish the herd and the

riders, he grinned his satisfaction.

"Good cow-country, by the look of that bunch of cattle," He

observed to himself. "And eight men is a small crew to work

a herd that size. I guess I'll tie onto this outfit. Stopper,

you'll maybe get a chance to turn a cow this afternoon."

Just how soon the chance would come, Bud had not realized. He

had no more than come within shouting distance of the herd

when a big, rollicky steer broke from the milling cattle and

headed straight out past him, running like a deer. Stopper,

famed and named for his prowess with just such cattle,

wheeled in his tracks and lengthened his stride to a run.

"Tie 'im down!" someone yelled behind Bud. And "Catch 'im and

tie 'im down!" shouted another.

For answer Bud waved his hand, and reached in his pocket for

his knife. Stopper was artfully circling the steer, forcing

it back toward the herd, and in another hundred yards or so

Bud must throw his loop He sliced off a saddle-string and

took it between his teeth, jerked his rope loose, flipped

open the loop as Stopper raced up alongside, dropped the

noose neatly, and took his turns while Stopper planted his

forefeet and braced himself for the shock. Bud's right leg

was over the cantle, all his weight on the left stirrup when

the jerk came and the steer fell with a thump. By good luck--

so Bud afterwards asserted--he was off and had the steer tied

before it had recovered its breath to scramble up. He

remounted, flipped off the loop and recoiled his rope while

he went jogging up to meet a rider coming out to him.

If he expected thanks for what he had done, he must have

received a shock. Other riders had left their posts and were

edging up to hear what happened, and Bud reined up in

astonishment before the most amazing string of unseemly

epithets he had ever heard. It began with: "What'd you throw

that critter for?"--which of course is putting it mildly--and

ended in a choked phrase which one man may not use to

another's face and expect anything but trouble afterwards.

Bud unbuckled his gun and hung the belt on his saddle horn,

and dismounted. "Get off your horse and take the damnedest

licking you ever had in your life, for that!" He invited

vengefully. "You told me to tie down that steer, and I tied

him down. You've got no call to complain--and there isn't a

man on earth I'll take that kinda talk from. Crawl down, you

parrot-faced cow-eater--and leave your gun on the saddle."

The man remained where he was and looked Bud over

uncertainly. "Who are you, and where'd yuh come from?" he

demanded more calmly. "I never saw yuh before."

"Well, I never grew up with your face before me, either!" Bud

snapped. "If I had I'd probably be cross-eyed by now. You

called me something! Get off that horse or I'll pull you

off!"

"Aw, yuh don't want to mind--" began a tall, lean man

pacifically; but he of the high nose stopped him with a wave

of the hand, his eyes still measuring the face, the form and

the fighting spirit of one Bud Birnie, standing with his coat

off, quivering with rage.

"I guess I'm in the wrong, young fellow--I DID holler 'Tie

'im down.' But if you'd ever been around this outfit any

you 'd have known I didn't mean it literal." He stopped and

suddenly he laughed. "I've been yellin' 'Tie 'im down' for

two years and more, when a critter breaks outa the bunch, and

nobody was ever fool enough to tackle it before. "It's just a

sayin' we've got, young man. We--"

"What about the name you called me?" Bud was still advancing

slowly, not much appeased by the explanation. "I don't give a

darn about the steer. You said tie him, and he's tied. But

when you call me--"

"My mistake, young feller. When I get riled up I don't pick

my words." He eyed Bud sharply. "You're mighty quick to obey

orders," He added tentatively.

"I was brought up to do as I'm told, "Bud retorted stiffly. "Any

objections to make?"

"Not one in the world. Wish there was more like yuh. You

ain't been in these parts long?"His tone made a question of

the statement.

"Not right here." Bud had no reason save his temper for not

giving more explicit information, but Bart Nelson--as Bud

knew him afterwards--continued to study him as if he

suspected a blotched past.

"Hunh. That your horse?"

"I've got a bill of sale for him."

"You don't happen to be wanting a job, I s'pose?"

"I wouldn't refuse to take one." And then the twinkle came

back to Bud's eyes, because all at once the whole incident

struck him as being rather funny. "I'd want a boss that

expected to have his orders carried out, though. I lack

imagination, and I never did try to read a man's mind. What

he says he'd better mean--when he says it to me."

Bart Nelson gave a short laugh, turned and sent his riders

back to their work with oaths tingling their ears. Bud judged

that cursing was his natural form of speech.

"Go let up that steer, and I'll put you to work," he said to

Bud afterwards. "That's a good rope horse you're riding. If

you want to use him, and if you can hold up to that little

sample of roping yuh gave us, I'll pay yuh sixty a month. And

that's partly for doing what you're told," he added with a

quick look into Bud's eyes. "You didn't say where you're

from----"

"I was born and raised in cow-country, and nobody's looking

for me," Bud informed him over his shoulder while he

remounted, and let it go at that. From southern Wyoming to

Idaho was too far, he reasoned, to make it worth while

stating his exact place of residence. If they had never heard

of the Tomahawk outfit it would do no good to name it. If

they had heard of it, they would wonder why the son of so

rich a cowman as Bob Birnie should be hiring out as a common

cowpuncher so far from home. He had studied the matter on his

way north, and had decided to let people form their own

conclusions. If he could not make good without the name of

Bob Birnie behind him, the sooner he found it out the better.

He untied the steer, drove it back into the herd and rode

over to where the high-nosed man was helping hold the "Cut."

"Can you read brands? We're cuttin' out AJ and AJBar stuff;

left ear-crop on the AJ, and undercut on the AJBar."

Bud nodded and eased into the herd, spied an AJ two-year-old

and urged it toward the outer edge, smiling to himself when

he saw how Stopper kept his nose close to the animal's rump.

Once in the milling fringe of the herd, Stopper nipped it

into the open, rushed it to the cut herd, wheeled and went

back of his own accord. From the corner of his eye, as he

went, Bud saw that Bart Nelson and one or two others were

watching him. They continued to eye him covertly while he

worked the herd with two other men. He was glad that he had

not travelled far that day, and that he had ridden Smoky and

left Stopper fresh and eager for his favorite pastime, which

was making cattle do what they particularly did not want to

do. In that he was adept, and it pleased Bud mightily to see

how much attention Stopper was attracting.

Not once did it occur to him that it might be himself who

occupied the thoughts of his boss. Buddy--afterwards Bud--had

lived his whole life among friends, his only enemies the

Indians who preyed upon the cowmen. White men he had never

learned to distrust, and to be distrusted had never been his

portion. He had always been Bud Birnie, son and heir of Bob

Birnie, as clean-handed a cattle king as ever recorded a

brand. Even at the University his position had been accepted

without question. That the man he mentally called Parrotface

was puzzled and even worried about him was the last thin