CHAPTER XV
SCIENCE AT HEART'S DESIRE
_This being the Story of a Cow Puncher, an Osteopath, and a Cross-eyedHorse_
"That old railroad'll shore bust me up a heap if it ever does git inhere," remarked Tom Osby one morning in the forum of Whiteman's corral,where the accustomed group was sitting in the sun, waiting for some oneto volunteer as Homer for the day.
There was little to do but listen to story telling, for Tom Osby dweltin the tents of Kedar, delaying departure on his accustomed trip toVegas.
"A feller down there to Sky Top," he went on, arousing only the mostindolent interest, "one of them spy-glass ingineers--tenderfoot, withhis six-shooter belt buckled so tight he couldn't get his feet to theground--he says to me I might as well trade my old grays for a nice newcheckerboard, or a deck of author cards, for I won't have nothing to dobut just amuse myself when the railroad cars gets here."
No one spoke. All present were trying to imagine how Heart's Desirewould seem with a railroad train each day.
"Things'll be some different in them days, mebbe so." Tom recrossedhis legs with well-considered deliberation.
"There's a heap of things different already from what they used to bewhen I first hit the cow range," said Curly. "The whole country'schanged, and it ain't changed for the better, either. Grass is longer,and horns is shorter, and men is triflin'er. Since the Yankees has gotwest of the Missouri River a ranch foreman ain't allowed to run his ownbrandin' iron any more, and that takes more'n half the poetry out ofthe cow business, don't it, Mac?" This to McKinney, who was nearlyasleep.
"Everything else is changing too," Curly continued, gathering fluencyas memories began to crowd upon him. "Look at the lawyers and doctorsthere is in the Territory now--and this country used to be respectable.Why, when I first come here there wasn't a doctor within a thousandmiles, and no need for one. If one of the boys got shot up much, wealways found some way to laundry him and sew him together again withoutno need of a diplomy. No one ever got sick; and, of course, no oneever did die of his own accord, the way they do back in the States."
"What's it all about, Curly?" drawled Dan Anderson. "You can't tell astory worth a cent." Curly paid no attention to him.
"The first doctor that ever come out here for to alleviate us fellers,"he went on, "why, he settled over on the Sweetwater. He was a allopathfrom Bitter Creek. What medicine that feller did give! He gradualdrifted into the vet'inary line.
"Then there come a homeopath--that was after a good many women folkshad settled in along the railroad over west. Still, there wasn't muchsickness, and I don't reckon the homeopath ever did winter through. Iwas livin' with the Bar T outfit on the Oscura range, at that time.
"Next doctor that come along was a ostypath." Curly took a chew oftobacco, and paused a moment reflectively.
"I said the first feller drifted into vet'inary lines, didn't I?" heresumed. "Well, the ostypath did, too. Didn't you never hear aboutthat? Why, he ostypathed a horse!"
"Did _what_?" asked Tom Osby sitting up; for hitherto there had seemedno need to listen attentively.
"Yes, sir," he went on, "he ostypathed a horse for us. The boys theygambled about two thousand dollars on that horse over at Socorro. Itwas a cross-eyed horse, too."
"What's that?" Doc Tomlinson objected. "There never was such a thingas a cross-eyed horse."
"Oh, there wasn't, wasn't there?" said Curly. "Well, now, my friend,when you talk that-a-way, you simply show me how much you don't knowabout horses. This here Bar T horse was as cross-eyed as a saw-horse,until we got him ostypathed. But, of course, if you don't believe whatI say, there's no use tellin' you this story at all."
"Oh, go on, go on," McKinney spoke up, "don't pay no attention to Doc."
"Well," Curly resumed, "that there horse was knowed constant on thisrange for over three years. He was a outlaw, with cream mane and tail,and a _pinto_ map of Europe, Asia, and Africa wrote all over his ribs.Run? Why, that horse could run down a coyote as a moral pastime. Weused him to catch jack rabbits with between meals. It wasn't notrouble for him to _run_. The trouble was to tell when he was goin'to _stop_ runnin'. Sometimes it was a good while before the fellerridin' him could get him around to where he begun to run. He run incurves natural, and he handed out a right curve or a left one, just ashe happened to feel, same as the feller dealin' faro, and just as easy.
"Tom Redmond, on the Bar T, he got this horse from a feller by the nameof Hasenberg, that brought in a bunch of has-beens and outlaws, andallowed to distribute 'em in this country. Hasenberg was a foreigngent that looked a good deal like Whiteman, our distinguishedfeller-citizen here. He was cross-eyed hisself, body and soul. Therewasn't a straight thing about him. We allowed that maybe this Pinto_caballo_ got cross-eyed from associatin' with old Hasenberg, who wasstrictly on the bias, any way you figured."
"You ain't so bad, after all, Curly," said Dan Andersen, sitting up."You're beginning now to hit the human interest part. You ought to bea reg'lar contributor."
"Shut up!" said Curly. "Now Tom Redmond, he took to this here Pintohorse from havin' seen him jump the corral fence several times, andstart floatin' off across the country for a eight or ten mile sasshaywithout no special encouragement. He hired three Castilian busters tooperate on Pinto, and he got so he could be rode occasional, but everyone allowed they never did see any horse just like him. He was themost aggravatinest thing we ever did have on this range. He had a sortof odd-lookin' white eye, but a heap of them _pintos_ has got glasseyes, and so no one thought to examine his lookers very close, thoughit was noticed early in the game that Pinto might be lookin' one wayand goin' the other, at the same time. He'd be goin' on a keen lope,and then something or other might get on his mind, and he'd stop anduntangle hisself from all kinds of ridin'. Sometimes he'd jump andsnort like he was seein' ghosts. A feller on that horse could haveroped antelopes as easy as yearlin' calves, if he could just have toldwhich way Mr. Pinto was goin'; but he was a shore hard one to estermate.
"At last Tom, why, he suspected somethin' wasn't right with Pinto'slamps. If you stuck out a bunch of hay at him, he couldn't bite it byabout five feet. When you led him down to water, you had to gosideways; and if you wanted to get him in through the corral gate, youhad to push him in backward. We discovered right soon that he was bornwith his parallax or something out of gear. His graduated scale ofseein' things was different from our'n. I don't reckon anybody everwill know what all Pinto saw with them glass lamps of his, but all thetime we knowed that if we could ever onct get his lookin' outfit tunedup proper, we had the whole country skinned in a horse race; for hecould shore run copious.
"That was why he had the whole Bar T outfit guessin' all the time. Weall wanted to bet on him, and we was all scared to. Sometimes we'dmake up a purse among us, and we'd go over to some social getherin' orother, and win a thousand dollars. Old Pinto could run all day; he canyet, for that matter. Didn't make no difference to him how often weraced him; and natural, after we'd won one hatful of money with him,we'd want to win another. That was where our judgment was weak.
"You never could tell whether Pinto was goin' to finish under the wire,or out in the landscape. His eyes seemed to be sort of moverble, butlike enough they'd get sot when he went to runnin'. Then he'd runwhichever way he was lookin' at the time, or happened to think he waslookin'; and dependin' additional on what he thought he saw. And law!A whole board of supervisors and school commissioners couldn't havelooked that horse in the face, and guessed on their sacred honorwhether he was goin' to jump the fence to the left, or take to the highsage on the outside of the track.
"Onct in a while we'd git Pinto's left eye set at a angle, and he'dcome around the track and under the wire before she wobbled out ofplace. On them occasions we made money a heap easier than I ever dida-gettin' it from home. But, owin' to the looseness of them eyes, Idon't reckon there never was no horse racin' as uncertain as this here;and like enough you may have
observed it's uncertain enough even whenthings is fixed in the most comf'terble way possible."
A deep sigh greeted this, which showed that Curly's audience was infull sympathy.
"You always felt like puttin' the saddle on to Pinto hind end to, hewas so cross-eyed," he resumed ruminatingly, "but still you couldn'thelp feelin' sorry for him, neither. Now, he had a right pained andgrieved look in his face all the time. I reckon he thought this was ahard sort of a world to get along in. It is. A cross-eyed man has ahard enough time, but a cross-eyed _horse_--well, you don't know howmuch trouble he can be for hisself, and every one else around him.
"Now, here we was, fixed up like I told you. Mr. Allopath is over onSweetwater creek, Mr. Homeopath is maybe in the last stages ofstarvation. Old Pinto looks plumb hopeless, and all us fellers ismostly hopeless too, owin' to his uncertain habits in a horse race, yetknowin' that it ain't perfessional for us not to back a Bar T horsethat can run as fast as this one can.
"About then along comes Mr. Ostypath. This was just about thirty daysbefore the county fair at Socorro, and there was money hung up forhorse races over there that made us feel sick to think of. We knew wecould go out of the cow-punchin' business for good if we could justonly onct get Pinto over there, and get him to run the right way for afew brief moments.
"Was he game? I don't know. There never was no horse ever got clostenough to him in a horse race to tell whether he was game or not. Hemight not get back home in time for supper, but he would shore runindustrious. Say, I talked in a telyphome onct. The book hung on thebox said the telyphome was instantaneous. It ain't. But now thisPinto, he was a heap more instantaneous than a telyphome.
"As I was sayin', it was long about now Mr. Ostypath comes in. Hetalks with the boss about locatin' around in here. Boss studies himover a while, and as there ain't been anybody sick for over ten yearshe tries to break it to Mr. Ostypath gentle that the Bar T ain't a goodplace for a doctor. They have some conversation along in there,that-a-way, and Mr. Ostypath before long gets the boss interested deepand plenty. He says there ain't no such a thing as gettin' sick. Weall knew that before; but he certainly floors the lot when he allowsthat the reason a feller don't feel good, so as he can eat tenpennynails, and make a million dollars a year, is always because there issomething wrong with his osshus structure.
"He says the only thing that makes a feller have rheumatism, ordyspepsia, or headache, or nosebleed, or red hair, or any othersickness, is that something is wrong with his nervous system. Now,it's this-a-way. He allows them nerves is like a bunch of garden hose.If you put your foot on the hose, the water can't run right free. Ifyou take it off, everything's lovely. 'Now,' says Mr. Ostypath, 'if,owin' to some luxation, some leeshun, some temporary mechanicaldisarrangement of your osshus structure, due to a oversight of aAll-wise Providence, or maybe a fall off'n a buckin' horse, one of thembones of yours gets to pressin' on a nerve, why, it ain't natural youought to feel good. Now, is it?' says he.
"He goes on and shows how all up and down a feller's backbone there isplenty of soft spots, and he shows likewise that there is scatteredaround in different parts of a feller's territory something like twohundred and four and a half bones, any one of which is likely anyminute to jar loose and go to pressin' on a soft spot; 'In which case,'says he, 'there is need of a ostypath immediate.'
"For instance,' he says to me, 'I could make quite a man out of you ina couple of years if I had the chanct.' I ast him what his price wouldbe for that, and he said he was willin' to tackle it for about fiftydollars a month. That bein' just five dollars a month more than theboss was allowing me at the time, and me seein' I'd have to go abouttwo years without anything to wear or eat--let alone anything todrink--I had to let this chanct go by. I been strugglin' along, as youknow, ever since, just like this, some shopworn, but so's to set up.There was one while, I admit, when the Doc made me some nervous, when Ithought of all them soft spots in my spine, and all them bones liableto get loose any minute and go to pressin' on them. But I had to takemy chances, like any other cow puncher at forty-five a month."
"You ought to raise his wages, Mac," said Doc Tomlinson to McKinney,the ranch foreman, but the latter only grunted.
"Mr. Ostypath, he stayed around the Bar T quite a while," began Curlyagain, "and we got to talkin' to him a heap about modern science. Sayshe, one evenin', this-a-way to us fellers, says he, 'Why, a great manythings goes wrong because the nervous system is interfered with, alongof your osshus structure. You think your stomach is out of whack,'says he. 'It ain't. All it needs is more nerve supply. I git that byloosenin' up the bones in your back. Why, I've cured a heap ofrheumatism, and paralysis, and cross eyes, and--'
"'What's that?' says Tom Redmond, right sudden.
"'You heard me, sir,' says the Doc, severe.
"Tom, he couldn't hardly wait, he was so bad struck with the idea hehad. 'Come here, Doc,' says he. And then him and Doc walked off alittle ways and begun to talk. When they come up toward us again, weheard the Doc sayin': 'Of course I could cure him. Straybismus is deadeasy. I never did operate on no horse, but I've got to eat, and ifthis here is the only patient in this whole blamed country, why I'llhave to go you, if it's only for the sake of science,' says he. Thenwe all bunched in together and drifted off toward the corral, where oldPinto was standin', lookin' hopeless and thoughtful. 'Is this thepatient?' says the Doc, sort of sighin'.
"'It are,' says Tom Redmond.
"Doc he walks up to old Pinto, and has a look at him, frontways,sideways, and all around. Pinto raises his head up, snorts, and looksDoc full in the face; leastwise, if he'd 'a' been any other horse, he'd'a' been lookin' him full in the face. Doc he stands thoughtful forquite a while, and then he goes and kind of runs his hand up and downalong Pinto's spine. He growed plumb enthusiastic then, 'Beautifulsubject,' says he. 'Be-yoo-tiful ostypathic subject! Whole osshusstructure exposed!' And Pinto shore was a dream if bones was needfulin the game."
Curly paused for another chew of tobacco, then went on again.
"Well, it's like this, you see; the backbone of a man or a horse isfull of little humps--you can see that easy in the springtime. Now oldPinto's back, it looked like a topygraphical survey of the whole RockyMountain range.
"Doc he runs his hand up and down along this high divide, and says he,'Just like I thought,' says he. 'The patient has suffered a distinctleeshun in the immediate vicinity of his vaseline motor centres.'"
"You mean the vaso-motor centres," suggested Dan Anderson.
"That's what I said," said Curly, aggressively.
"Now, when we all heard Doc say them words we knowed he was shorescientific, and we come up clost while the examination was progressin'.
"'Most extraordinary,' says Doc, feelin' some more. 'Now, here is adistant luxation in the lumber regions.' He talked like Pinto had awooden leg.
"'I should diagnose great cerebral excitation, along with pernouncedocular hesitation,' says Doc at last.
"'Now look here, Doc,' says Tom Redmond to him then. 'You go careful.We all know there's something strange about this here horse; but now,if he's got any bone pressin' on him anywhere that makes him _run_ theway he does, why, you be blamed careful not to monkey with that thereparticular bone. Don't you touch his _runnin'_ bone, because_that's_ all right the way it is.'
"'Don't you worry any,' says the Doc. 'All I should do would only beto increase his nerve supply. In time I could remedy his oculardefecks, too,' says he. He allows that if we will give him time, hecan make Pinto's eyes straighten out so's he'll look like a new rockin'horse Christmas mornin' at a church festerval. Incidentally hesuggests that we get a tall leather blinder and run it down Pinto'snose, right between his eyes.
"This last was what caught us most of all. 'This here blinder idea,'says Tom Redmond, 'is plumb scientific. The trouble with us cowpunchers is we ain't got no brains--or we wouldn't be cow punchers!Now look here, Pinto's right eye looks off to the left, and his lefteye
looks off to the right. Like enough he sees all sorts of things onboth sides of him, and gets 'em mixed. Now, you put this here harnessleather between his eyes, and his right eye looks plumb into it on oneside, and his left eye looks into it on the other. Result is, he can'tsee nothing at _all_! Now, if he'll only run when he's _blind_, why,we can skin them Socorro people till it seems like a shame.'
"Well, right then we all felt money in our pockets. We seemed most toogood to be out ridin' sign, or pullin' old cows out of mudholes. 'Youleave all that to me,' says Doc. 'By the time I've worked on thispatient's nerve centres for a while, I'll make a new horse out of him.You watch me,' says he. That made us all feel cheerful. We thoughtthis wasn't such a bad world, after all.
"We passed the hat in the interest of modern science, and we fenced offa place in the corral and set up a school of ostypathy in our midst.Doc, he done some things that seemed to us right strange at first. Hegets Pinto up in one corner and takes him by the ear, and tries tobreak his neck, with his foot in the middle of his back. Then he goesaround on the other side and does the same thing. He hammers him upone side and down the other, and works him and wiggles him till us cowpunchers thought he was goin' to scatter him around worse thanCassybianca on the burnin' deck after the exploshun. My experience,though, is that it's right hard to shake a horse to pieces. Pinto, hestood it all right. And say, he got so gentle, with that tall blinderbetween his eyes, that he'd 'a' followed off a sheepherder.
"All this time we was throwin' oats a-plenty into Pinto, rubbin' hislegs down, and gettin' him used to a saddle a little bit lighter than aregular cow saddle. Doc, he allows he can see his eyes straightenin'out every day. 'I ought to have a year on this job,' says he; 'butthese here is urgent times.'
"I should say they was urgent. The time for the county fair at Socorrowas comin' right clost.
"At last we takes the old Hasenberg Pinto over to Socorro to the fair,and there we enters him in everything from the front to the back of theracin' book. My friends, you would 'a' shed tears of pity to see themfolks fall down over theirselves tryin' to hand us their money againstold Pinto. There was horses there from Montanny to Arizony, all kindsof fancy riders, and money--oh, law! Us Bar T fellers, we tookeverything offered--put up everything we had, down to our spurs. Thenwe'd go off by ourselves and look at each other solemn. We was gettin'rich so quick we felt almost scared.
"There come nigh to bein' a little shootin' just before the horses wasgettin' ready for the first race, which was for a mile and a half. Weled old Pinto out, and some feller standin' by, he says, sarcasticlike, 'What's that I see comin'; a snow-plough?' Him alludin' to thesingle blinder on Pinto's nose.
"'I reckon you'll think it's been snowin' when we get through,' saysTom Redmond to him, scornful. 'The best thing you can do is to shutup, unless you've got a little money you want to contribute to the BarT festerval.' But about then they hollered for the horses to go to thepost, and there wasn't no more talk.
"Pinto he acted meek and humble, just like a glass-eyed angel, and thestarter didn't have no trouble with him at all. At last he got themall off, so clost together one saddle blanket would have done for thewhole bunch. Say, man, that was a fine start.
"Along with oats and ostypathy, old Pinto he'd come out on the trackthat day just standin' on the edges of his feet, he was feelin' thatfine. We put Jose Santa Maria Trujillo, one of our lightest boys, upon Pinto for to ride him. Now a Greaser ain't got no sense. It wasthat fool boy Jose that busted up modern science on the Bar T.
"I was tellin' you that there horse was ostypathed, so to speak, plumbto a razor edge, and I was sayin' that he went off on a even start.Then what did he do? Run? No, he didn't _run_. He just sort ofpassed _away_ from the place where he started at. Our Greaser, hesees the race is all over, and like any fool cow puncher, he must getfrisky. Comin' down the homestretch, only needin' about one morejump--for it ain't above a quarter of a mile--Jose, he stands up in hisstirrups and pulls off his hat, and just whangs old Pinto over the headwith it, friendly like, to show him there ain't no coldness.
"We never did rightly know what happened at that time. The Greaseradmits he may have busted off the fastenin' of that single blinder downPinto's nose. Anyhow, Pinto runs a few short jumps, and then stops,lookin' troubled. The next minute he hides his face on the Greaser andthere is a glimpse of bright, glad sunlight on the bottom of Jose'smoccasins. Next minute after that Pinto is up in the grandstand amongthe ladies, and there he sits down in the lap of the Governor's wife,which was among them present.
"There was time, even then, to lead him down and over the line, butbefore we could think of that he falls to buckin' sincere andconscientious, up there among the benches, and if he didn't jar hisosshus structure a heap _then_, it wasn't no fault of his'n. We allrun up in front of the grandstand, and stood lookin' up at Pinto, andhim the maddest, scaredest, cross-eyedest horse I ever did see in allmy life. His single blinder was swingin' loose under his neck. Hiseyes was right mean and white, and the Mexican saints only knows whichway he _was_ a-lookin'.
"So there we was," went on Curly, with another sigh, "all Socorrosayin' bright and cheerful things to the Bar T, and us plumb broke, andfar, far from home.
"We roped Pinto, and led him home behind the wagon, forty miles overthe sand, by the soft, silver light of the moon. There wasn't a horseor saddle left in our _rodeo_, and we had to ride on the grub wagon,which you know is a disgrace to any gentleman that wears spurs. Pinto,he was the gayest one in the lot. I reckon he allowed he'd been Queenof the May. Every time he saw a jack rabbit or a bunch of sage brush,he'd snort and take a _pasear_ sideways as far as the rope would lethim go.
"'The patient seems to be still laborin' under great cerebralexcitation,' says the Doc, which was likewise on the wagon. 'I oughtto have had a year on him,' says he, despondent like.
"'Shut up,' says Tom Redmond to the Doc. 'I'd shoot up your own osshusstructure plenty,' says he, 'if I hadn't bet my gun on that horse race.'
"Well, we got home, the wagon-load of us, in the mornin' sometime,every one of us ashamed to look the cook in the face, and hopin' theboss was away from home. But he wasn't. He looks at us, and says he;--
"'Is this a sheep outfit I see before me, or is it the remnants of theformer cow camp on the Bar T?' He was right sarcastic. 'Doc,' sayshe, 'explain this here to me.' But the Doc, he couldn't. Says the bossto him at last, 'The _right_ time to do the explainin' is before thehoss race is over, and not after,' says he. 'That's the only kind ofscience that goes hereafter on the Bar T,' says he.
"I reckon the boss was feelin' a little riled, because he had twohundred on Pinto hisself. A cross-eyed horse shore can make a sight oftrouble," Curly sighed in conclusion; "yet I bought Pinto for fourdollars, and--sometimes, anyway--he's the best horse in my string downat Carrizosy, ain't he, Mac?"
In the thoughtful silence following this tale, Tom Osby knocked hispipe reflectively against a cedar log. "That's the way with therailroad," he said. "It's goin' to come in herewith one eye on thegold mines and the other on the town--and there won't be noblind-bridle up in front of old Mr. Ingine, neither. If we got as muchsense as the Bar T feller, we'll do our explainin' before, and notafter the hoss race is over. Before I leave for Vegas, I want to seeone of you ostypothetic lawyers about that there railroad outfit."