CHAPTER 9. Moving the Herd.
Four thousand weary cattle crawled up the long ridge which divides ChinCoulee from Quitter Creek. Pink, riding point, opposite the Silent One,twisted round in his saddle and looked back at the slow-moving river ofhorns and backs veiled in a gray dust-cloud. Down the line at intervalsrode the others, humped listlessly in their saddles, their hat brimspulled low over tired eyes that smarted with dust and wind and burningheat.
Pink sighed, and wished lonesomely that it was Rowdy riding point withhim, instead of the Silent One, who grew even more silent as the daydragged leadenly to mid-afternoon; Pink could endure anything betterthan being left to his thoughts and to the complaining herd for company.
He took off his hat, pushed back his curls--dripping wet they were andflattened unbecomingly in pasty, yellow rings on his forehead--and eyedwith disfavor a line-backed, dry cow, with one horn tipped rakishlytoward her speckled nose; she blinked silently at wind and heat, andforged steadily ahead, up-hill and down coulee, always in the lead,always walking, walking, like an automaton. Her energy, in the face ofall the dry, dreary days, rasped Pink's nerves unbearably. For nearly aweek he had ridden left point, and always that line-backed cow with thedown-crumpled horn walked and walked and walked, a length ahead of hermost intrepid followers.
He leaned from his saddle, picked up a rock from the barren, yellowhillside, and threw it at the cow spitefully. The rock bounced off herlean rump; she blinked and broke into a shuffling trot, her dragginghoofs kicking up an extra amount of dust, which blew straight intoPink's face.
"Aw, cut it out!" he shouted petulantly. "You're sure the limit, withoutdoing any stunts at sprinting up-hill. Ain't yuh got any nerves, yuhblamed old skate? Yuh act like it was milkin'-time, and yuh was headedstraight for the bars and a bran mash. Can't yuh realize the kind uhdeal you're up against? Here's cattle that's got you skinned for looks,old girl, and they know it's coming blamed tough; and you just bat youreyes and peg along like yuh enjoyed it. Bawl, or something, can't yuh?Drop back a foot and act human!"
The Silent One looked across at him with a tired smile. "Let her go,Pink, and pray for more like her," he called amusedly. "There'll beenough of them dropping back presently."
Pink threw one leg over the horn and rode sidewise, made him acigarette, and tried to forget the cow--or, at least, to forgive her fornot acting as dog-tired as he felt.
They were on the very peak of the ridge now, and the hill slopedsmoothly down before them to the bluff which bounded Quitter Creek. Fardown, a tiny black speck in the coulee-bottom, they could see WoodenShoes riding along the creek-bank, scouting for water. From the way herode, and from the fact that camp was nowhere in sight, Pink guessedshrewdly that his quest was in vain. He shrugged his shoulders at whatthat meant, and gave his attention to the herd.
The marching line split at the brow of the bluff. The line-backedcow lowered her head a bit and went unfaltering down the parched,gravel-coated hill, followed by a few hundred of the freshest. Then thestream stopped flowing, and Pink and the Silent One rode back up thebluff to where the bulk of the footsore herd, their senses dulled byhunger and weariness and choking thirst, sniffed at the gravel thatpromised agony to their bruised feet, and balked at the ordeal. Othersstraggled up, bunched against the rebels, and stood stolidly where theywere.
Pink galloped on down the crawling line. "Forward, the Standard OilBrigade!" he yelled whimsically as he went.
The cowboys heard--and understood. They left their places and wentforward at a lope, and Pink rode back to the coulee edge, untyinghis slicker as he went. The Silent One was already off his horse andshouting hoarsely as he whacked with his slicker at the sulky mass.Pink rode in and did the same. It was not the first time this thing hadhappened, and from a diversion it was verging closely on the monotonous.Presently, even a rank tenderfoot must have caught the significance ofPink's military expression. The Standard Oil Brigade was at the front inforce.
Cowboys, swinging five-gallon oil-cans, picked up from scattered sheepcamps and carried many a weary mile for just such an emergency, werecharging the bunch intrepidly. Others made shift with flat sirup-canswith pebbles inside. A few, like Pink and the Silent One, flapped theirslickers till their arms ached. Anything, everything that would makea din and startle the cattle out of their lethargy, was pressed intoservice.
But they might have been raised in a barnyard and fed cabbage leavesfrom back door-steps, for all the excitement they showed. Cattle thatthree months ago--or a month--would run, head and tail high in air, atsight of a man on foot, backed away from a rattling, banging cube ofgleaming tin, turned and faced the thing dull-eyed and apathetic.
In time, however, they gave way dogedly before the onslaught. A few wereforced shrinkingly down the hill; others followed gingerly, until theline lengthened and flowed, a sluggish, brown-red stream, into thecoulee and across to Quitter Creek.
Here the leaders were browsing greedily along the banks. They hademptied the few holes that had still held a meager store of brackishwater and so the mutinous bulk of the herd snuffed at the trampled,muddy spots and bellowed their disappointment.
Wooden Shoes rode up and surveyed the half maddened animals gloomily."Push 'em on, boys," he said. "They's nothings for 'em here. I've sentthe wagons on to Red Willow; we'll try that next. Push 'em along all yuhcan, while I go on ahead and see."
With tin-cans, slickers, and much vituperation, they forced the herd upthe coulee side and strung them out again on trail. The line-backedcow walked and walked in the lead before Pink's querulous gaze, and theothers plodded listlessly after. The gray dust-cloud formed anew overtheir slowmoving backs, and the cowboys humped over in their saddlesand rode and rode, with the hot sun beating aslant in their dirt-grimedfaces, and with the wind blowing and blowing.
If this had been the first herd to make that dreary trip, things wouldnot have been quite so disheartening. But it was the third. Seventhousand lean kine had passed that way before them, eating the scantgrass growth and drinking what water they could find among those barren,sun-baked coulees.
The Cross L boys, on this third trip, were become a jaded lot ofhollow-eyed men, whose nerves were rasped raw with long hours and longerdays in the saddle. Pink's cheeks no longer made his name appropriate,and he was not the only one who grew fretful over small things. Rowdyhad been heard, more than once lately, to anathematize viciously theprairie-dogs for standing on their tails and chipchip-chipping at themas they went by. And though the Silent One did not swear, he carriedrocks in his pockets, and threw them with venomous precision at every"dog" that showed his impertinent nose out of a burrow within range. ForPink, he vented his spleen on the line-backed cow.
So they walked and walked and walked.
The cattle balked at another hill, and all the tincans and slickers inthe crowd could scarcely move them. The wind dropped with the sun, andthe clouds glowed gorgeously above them, getting scant notice, exceptthat they told eloquently of the coming night; and there were yetmiles--long, rough, heartbreaking miles--to put behind them beforethey could hope for the things their tired bodies craved: supper anddreamless sleep.
When the last of the herd had sidled, under protest, down the long hillto the flat, dusk was pushing the horizon closer upon them, mile bymile. When they crawled sinuously out upon the welcome level, the hillloomed ghostly and black behind them. A mile out, Wooden Shoes rode outof the gloom and met the point. He turned and rode beside Pink.
"Yuh'll have t' swing 'em north," he greeted.
"Red Willow's dry as hell--all but in the Rockin' R field. No use askin'ole Mullen to let us in there; we'll just go. I sent the wagons throughthe fence, an' yuh'll find camp about a mile up from the mouth uh thebig coulee. You swing 'em round the end uh this bench, an' hit that bigcoulee at the head. When you come t' the fence, tear it down. They'sawful good grass in that field!"
"All right," said Pink cheerfully. It was in open defiance of rangeetiquette; but their need was desperate. The only thing
about it Pinkdid not like was the long detour they must make. He called the newsacross to the Silent One, after Wooden Shoes had gone on down the line,and they swung the point gradually to the left.
Before that drive was over, Pink had vowed many times to leave the rangeforever and never to turn another cow--besides a good many other foolishthings which would be forgotten, once he had a good sleep. And Rowdy,plodding half-way down the herd, had grown exceedingly pessimisticregarding Jessie Conroy, and decided that there was no sense in thinkingabout her all the time, the way he had been doing. Also, he told himselfsavagely that if Harry ever crossed his trail again, there would besomething doing. This thing of letting a cur like that run roughshodover a man on account of a girl that didn't care was plumb idiotic. Andbeside him the cattle walked and walked and walked, a dim, moving massin the quiet July night.