CHAPTER XV
BILLEE DOBB'S STORY
Back at the Shooting Star ranch the three others, Nort, Billee Dobb andYellin' Kid, were occupying themselves with the business of the day.The Kid having reported on the condition of the "shacks," Nort decidedthat a new bunk house would be necessary before the shearing season toaccommodate the extra men. He and Yellin' Kid, together with BilleeDobb, then lazed about the place, awaiting the return of Dick and Bud.It was eleven o'clock before Dick came riding into the yard.
"Bring any grub back with you?"
"No. The store said the buckboard would be right over, almost as soonas I got here. Is the kitchen all cleaned out?"
"Pretty near, I guess. That's what the Mex meant when I caught him atthe door. Gee, I wish----"
He was interrupted by a rattling and creaking, and the sound of horsesbeating a fast tattoo on the hard earth. Above this bedlam arose thesound of a voice in loud and vigorous denunciation.
"Here she comes!" Nort cried. "The food! Say, that team must havebeen stepping right along. Got here almost as soon as you did, Dick."
With a final roar and crash of wooden timbers, and a last invocationto: "Hold up there, you two wildcats, or I'll bust you wide open," thecart drew up to the ranch house door.
From its swaying side the driver, a grinning youth in a blue shirt andred bandanna 'kerchief about his neck, climbed down.
"Get here in time?" he called. "Sure had these here babies rollin'right along." Then without even a halt for breath he went on: "What doyou think of this here team? Best pair of ponies in the state! Leandown, baby, 'til I smooth those ears of yours. Down, I say! Why, youspavin-boned piece of horse meat! Come down here or I'll chew you up!Throw your head back at me, will you? Of all the knock-kneed,wall-eyed chunks of locoed craziness, you're the worst. Pete, youpink-headed, glandered cayuse, drop that neck or I'll skin you alive.That's the stuff! Best little pair of broncoes in the state, boys!"
"You sure got some vocabulary!" laughed Dick. "Think a lot of yourteam, don't you--sometimes! Yes, you got here in plenty of time."
"Bring them yellow clings?" the Kid asked, anxiously.
"Yep! Two dozen cans of the best yellow cling peaches. An' flour,bacon, an' all the rest. Help me unload, boys."
With five pairs of willing hands on the job, the wagon was quicklyrelieved of its load. The food was carried into the kitchen, and leftthere for the cook with an admonition to: "Get busy, Mex. We'restarved!"
"Thanks for bringing the stuff over so promptly," Dick said to theyouthful driver. "You must have hit only the high spots to get here soquick."
"Should say I did! One time we left the ground and stayed up while acoyote ran under the whole length of the wagon. Can't beat this hereteam of mine for speed. Well, guess I'll be gettin' back. All set,ponies? Don't strain yourselves, now. Got plenty of time. Just goalong nice an' easy. Yes, sir, boys, I love these animals likebrothers!
"Get along there, Pete. Get along, I say. Pete, you lop-earedwangdoddle! Quit draggin' that other bronc around! Hear me? Dodgastyour hide, I'll blow your fool head right off your worthless carcass ifyou don't quit that. You will, will you? How do you like the feel ofthat? Now we're off! At-a-baby, get goin'! So long, boys! You,Pete! Gosh darn your senseless hide, I'll--" the rest was lost.
"He loves 'em like brothers!" shouted the Kid, holding his sides withlaughter. "Oh, boy! 'Take your time, ponies!' Sure, they'll taketheir time! Bet he's half way to Roarin' River by now. Wow, what adriver! Ho-ho--I haven't had a laugh like this in years! 'Don'tstrain yourselves!' Oh, baby!"
A cloud of dust marked the disappearance of the grinning youth with the"best pair of ponies in the state." He left behind him an appreciativeaudience.
"Hope that Mex gets a wiggle on," Nort said when the laughter hadquieted down. "He ought to be able to rustle a pretty fair meal withall that junk."
"And in the meantime we might as well sit," Yellin' Kid suggested."Look over the landscape."
The punchers made their way to the corral. Without explaining, eachknew the Kid's suggestion to "sit an' look over the landscape" meant aview from the top rail of the corral, which was several feet high.This is the cowboy's favorite resting place while waiting for "chuck."They will sit there and survey a perfectly familiar scene until calledoff by the cook's horn or the cry to "come an' git it."
"Bud ought to be back for grub," said Dick as he swung his leg over thetop rail.
"Ought to," Nort agreed. "Said he wasn't going far."
"That might mean anything out here," Billee Dobb broke in, "from atwo-mile jaunt to a ride of twenty mile or more. Bud's O. K. though.If he don't show up fer his meals he's got a good reason."
"You're probably right," Dick said, "but with all this trouble aroundhere I don't like to see anyone stay away too long. If he doesn't comein before afternoon we'll have to take a ride around and see if wecan't spot him."
"No use crossing bridges before we come to them," Nort declared."After all this talk Bud will probably come riding in with a bear cubhe chased. Bud's funny that way. Anything that's a bit out of theordinary, and Bud will go miles out of his way to see it. Remember howhe stared at that cyclone coming until he forgot where he was?"
"I don't think he's so funny," the Kid declared in a thoughtful tone."Just doesn't like to miss any of the show, that's all. Me, I'm likethat sometimes. A pretty sunset gets me here somehow," and the Kidplaced his hand on his stomach in a general way.
"Have you tried eating raw onions?" Nort asked in a solicitous voice."They say they're awful good."
"Aw, you guys make me sick," said Yellin' Kid disgustedly. "Just assoon as a feller gets--well--poetical like--you hop all over him."
"Ex-cuse me, Kid! I didn't know you were getting poetical. Why, if Ihad known that I wouldn't have said a word. I thought you were tellingus about your indigestion."
"Go ahead--go ahead! I'll get you sometime, Nort. Billee, do youthink it's nice to run me around like that?"
"Do you good," Billee said with a grin. "When I was young an' workedout with a bunch from Two-bar Cross--the roughest outfit you'd everlaid eyes on--I wasn't let to open my mouth without someone hoppin'down my throat. That was a gang, let me tell you!"
"They were the old-fashioned punchers, weren't they?" Dick asked,winking at the Kid. "The kind that used a buck-strap and ate hiscoffee out of a frying-pan."
"Buck-strap! Buck--say, boy, if any man on that there Two-bar Crossoutfit ever heard you speak of a buck-strap they wouldn't know what youwas talkin' about. No, sir! Those boys were rough customers."
A buck-strap is a leather thong fastened to the saddle in such a waythat if the pony suddenly bucks, its rider can hold himself on byinserting his hand within this thong and pulling hard. The user of oneof these contraptions is never proud of it, needless to say.
"You used to work a lot in the summer, didn't you, Billee?" the Kidasked with a concealed grin.
"Yes, and in the winter, too. Mostly in the winter. I remember onetime----"
"Now he's off," the Kid whispered in an aside to Dick. "This'll begood."
"I remember once when I was ridin' for the Two-bar Cross bunch an' wehad four thousand head of cattle on the range. 'Long about December,when the first snow starts, me an' Joe Heldig was sent out to see howthe bunch was makin' out, and if they needed anything, one of us was toride back an' tell the rest while the other watched. Well, we set outabout seven o'clock one morning to see if we could spot the herd.
"It was clear an' cold when we started. Not a cloud in the sky.Thinks I, we're pretty lucky, havin' such fine weather; that late inthe season, too. Joe Heldig, he don't say nothin'. We took with usour blankets, some sour-dough, coffee an' bacon, an' that fryin'-panyou was talking about, Dick. We rode along easy like, not worryin' nornothin', an' talkin' about the best way to skin a steer, an' whetherit's best to split two pair on the draw to try for a flush. That usedto be a trick of J
oe's.
"Around about noon it started to get warmer, an' off in the east a fewwhite clouds showed up. Me, I don't worry none, but I see Joe lookin'kind of anxious now an' then.
"We found the bunch at three o'clock, not as far out as we figgeredthey'd be. Seemed pretty contented an' easy. Had a good grazin' spot,too. An' just as we was about to call it a day I felt something wetdrop on my nose. Then another. Joe looked at me an' I looked at him.Snow! Know what that means on the range?
"Well, there was nothin' for it but to stick around an' see how bad itwas goin' to be. By five o'clock we knew. The flakes was comin' downso thick you couldn't see, and a wind had sprung up. An' Joe an' mehad a bunch of cattle on our hands. I told Joe one of us better try tomake the ranch and bring back enough men to get the cattle to asheltered spot, so they wouldn't die. I knew we couldn't move themalone, and where they were grazin' it was all open. So Joe started.He knew the general direction, an' what would be sure suicide foranyone else was just a chance for Joe, havin' lived for twenty yearsright in that section.
"I could easy keep track of the cows by their moanin'. It was realcold now, an' the poor bunch of beeves stood in the snow with theirheads held low, with icicles hanging from their eyes, groanin'something pitiful. They never moved. Just stood there while the snowdrifted up around their haunches. What I was afraid of was a drift.Not a drift of snow, but a drift of cattle.
"I knew those steers would only stay still a certain length of time,then one of them would start movin' leaward, with the whole bunchfollowin'. And they'd march that way into the snow, until everyblessed one of them dropped, and died where it fell. First the littlecalves. Then the mothers, who'd stick by their babies until they died,too. Then the cows of the herd who weren't so strong. An' last, somebig, proud long-horn would drop in his tracks an' die. An' therewouldn't be nothin' left of the herd except dots in the snow along thepath. That's what we call a drift.
"I knew if they ever started driftin' I couldn't save them. I couldtry to turn them by rushin' my bronc into them, but it wouldn't do nogood. It needs at least six men to do that job. An' even then, ifthey once get well started, I don't think they'd turn aside fer_nothin'_. So I just sat on my pony an' waited. The snow kept gettin'higher, and the wind colder an' colder. The cows were moanin' heavynow. I saw 'em shift once or twice, an' my heart went in my throat,but they settled down once more to just breathin' hard. How I did hopethat Joe made the ranch. I sort of felt that if help didn't come soonthe drift would start. It takes so long for a cow to get the idea shewants to move, and when she gets the notion into her head, her legsstart goin' themselves, an' keep goin' until something bigger andstronger than she is stops her. I knew that the only thing would stopthis bunch, once they started, would be death.
"All of a sudden the moanin' of the cattle grew louder. I rode upclose to them an' saw what the reason was, and it made me catch mybreath. A big cow was steppin' slowly out, head low, right into thegale. The drift had started.
"I rode hard at the brute that was leadin'. She never paid noattention to me whatever. Then I drew my gun and shot her, but the cowbehind kept right on goin'. An' back of her the rest started movin'.Unless something happened quick the show was over.
"Then I heard what I'd been hopin' an' prayin' for--a yell! Throughthe screamin' of the wind I could hear Joe's voice whoopin' it up, an'believe me, it was the most welcome sound I'd ever heard. The nextminute the whole gang from the ranch, in a flyin' wedge, rode rightinto that bunch of long-horns, and split them wide open!
"That saved them. They was scared out of the drift, an' we soon drovethem down behind a hill, where the wind wouldn't get at them, and theycould reach the grass through the snow. Joe had made it just in time,though how he found the ranch in that storm is still a mystery, even tohim."
The boys on the rail sat silent for a moment. Then out from thekitchen of the ranch house there came the blast of a horn.
"Grub!" Yellin' Kid shouted. "Let's eat, boys!"