CHAPTER IX
PERILS IN THE NIGHT
Red Jack and Jose Gonzalez joined the forces of the Socorro Springsranch while the cattle of the morning's round-up were being driven tothe watering-place near the ranch house. Across the road from the housestood a large grove of cottonwoods; a little beyond that, in the valley,a deep pond had been dug, into which flowed the outlets from the severalsprings. The cattle from a score of miles roundabout were accustomed tocome to this pond, with its circling belt of trees, for water and formidday rest in the shade.
Here the round-up was in progress, and Conrad galloped out to meet thenew hand and give him instructions. As he rode off toward the hillsafter a bunch of straggling cattle Curtis looked after him with anapproving eye. "He knows how to fork a horse, at least," he thought. Inthe afternoon Jose was set to work cutting out and bunching the two-and three-year-old steers and later at helping with the branding. Conradwatched his handling of the branding irons, and he and all the reststopped their work to follow his movements with critical eyes as heroped and brought to the ground a belligerent steer. The superintendentwas well satisfied. "At last I've got a man who knows the business andhas some _sabe_," he thought. "If he goes on as well as he begins I'llkeep him after the shipping is done."
The next day the round-up crept slowly southward, accompanied bythe chuck-wagon and a drove of fresh horses. At noon the cattlegathered during the morning were bunched at Adobe Springs, the nextwatering-place toward the Mexican border. Gonzalez was the only Mexicanamong the cowboys, the rest being Americans of one sort or another--fromTexas, Colorado, the Northwest, and the Middle West. All felt towardhim the contemptuous scorn born of difference in race and consequentconviction of superior merit. They had no scruples about making knowntheir prejudice, and more than once his face flushed and his hand dartedtoward the knife hidden in his bosom. Yet, as the day wore on and theysaw that he excelled the best of them in handling the lasso and in thecunning of his movements when cutting out the steers from the herd, theybegan to show him the respect that skill of any sort inspires in thosewho know with what effort it is acquired.
After supper, when they gathered about the campfire, smoking, andscoffing good-naturedly at one another's tales of wondrous experiences,and talking over the events of the day just gone, they received him uponan equality with themselves which was only slightly grudged. He toldthem, in English more precise than any of them could speak, of Conrad'sencounter with Rutherford Jenkins in the Blue Front, and theirappreciation of the tale completed the work which his skill as a cowboyhad begun. Thereafter they looked upon Jose as a comrade and a goodfellow.
Three small adobe houses, of one room each, with flat roofs and earthenfloors, had been built here, as the large and never-failing springs madethe spot a sure rendezvous for every round-up. The locality was infestedby skunks, and the cowboys, who greatly feared midnight bites from theprowling animals, believing hydrophobia a sure consequence, usuallypreferred to sleep inside the houses, on bunks filled with alfalfa hay.If they ventured to sleep out-of-doors, they kept small cans of coal oilready and, whenever a wakeful man saw one of the small creatures near, aquick turn of the wrist drenched its fur with the fluid and a brand fromthe smouldering campfire tossed after it sent a squealing pillar offlame flying up the hill and saved them from further disturbance thatnight.
A board nailed across a corner of the largest house served Conrad as adesk. He kept there a lamp, writing materials, and a few books. Whilethe men sprawled around the campfire and the last gleams of dusky redfaded from the west and the moon bounded up from behind the easternhills, he made his memoranda, wrote a letter to be sent to thepost-office by the first chance comer, and lost himself for an hour in avolume of Shakespeare. When he went outside the men were walking about,yawning and stretching, ready for sleep. Curtis's imagination was stillastir from his reading, and the presence of any other human being seemedan impertinence. But he said, genially:
"Well, boys, you begin to look as if you wanted to turn in. Takewhatever bunks you like, if you want to go inside. I'm going to sleepout here."
"Better have a tin of ile handy," said Red Jack. "The polecats are surelikely to nibble your toes if you don't. The night I slept here lastweek I never saw the cusses so bad; durned if one of the critters didn'tget inside and wake me up smellin' of my ear. I was some skeered of himstinkin' up the place so it couldn't be slept in for a year, so I jesthad to lay low and wait for him to go outside, and then I doused himgood with ile and throwed the candle at him. I sure reckon he's holed upsomewhere now, waitin' till he can afford a new sealskin sacque beforehe shows hisself in good sassiety ag'in."
"I don't think they'll bother me to-night," Curtis responded. At thatmoment he felt that nothing could disturb him, if only he could be leftalone with the moonlight and the plain. "I'll sleep with my boots on,and my cheeks are not as fat as yours, Jack, so there'll be notemptation. Where do you want to bunk, Jose? You can sleep outside orin, just as you like."
Gonzalez replied respectfully that he would rather go in. But presentlyhe came out again with his blanket and chose a spot against the wall ofone of the houses. Conrad had gone out to the herd to speak with the manon patrol and to make sure that all was well. When he returned the menhad disappeared. "Good!" he said to himself. "They've all gone insideand I've got the universe to myself." He did not see the still form inits gray blanket close against the wall.
Curtis took the red bandanna from his neck and tied it over his ears, tokeep out the tiny things that crawl o' nights, and couched himself inhis blanket on the gently rising ground with his saddle for a pillow. Helay down with his face to the east, where the dim and mellow sky,flooded with moonlight, seemed to recede far back, to the very limits ofspace, and leave the huge white globe suspended there in broodingmajesty just above the plain. With long legs outstretched and musclesrelaxed, he lay as still as if asleep, his eyes on its glowing disk. Heknew all that science had discovered or guessed about the moon'scharacter and history. But it had companioned him on so many a silentride across long miles of dimly gleaming plain, and on so many nightslike this as he lay upon the earth it had gathered his thoughts into itsgreat white bosom, that he could not image it to himself as a mere deadand barren satellite of the earth. More easily could he understand howthe living Cynthia had once leaped earthward and been welcomed withbelief and love.
Conrad's mind busied itself at first with the play he had just beenreading, but presently wandered to his own affairs and the purpose thathad been the dominant influence of half his life. He chuckled softly ashe remembered the check he had recently received. "I've got him on therun," he thought, "and I'm bound to lay him out sooner or later. Lord,but it will be a satisfaction to face him finally! And he'll not get thedrop on me first, either, unless Providence takes as good care ofrascals as they say it does of fools." He recalled himself now and thento listen to the sounds from the sleeping herd, to the hoof-beats of thehorse as the cowboy on watch rode round and round the bunch, and to hisvoice singing in a lulling monotone. But gradually thought and will andsense sank back toward the verge of that great gulf out of which theyspring.
When next he opened his eyes the moon was dropping toward the westernhorizon, but he had turned in his sleep and its light was still uponhis face. Lying motionless, Curtis listened to the sounds from the herd,his first thought being that something unusual there must have awakenedhim. The coyotes were yelping at one another from hill and plain, butthrough their barking he could hear the snorting sigh of a steer turningin its sleep, the tramp of the horse, and the cowboy's lullaby. Herecognized the voice as that of Peters, who was to have the third watch,and so knew that it must be well on toward morning. He was about to sinkinto slumber again when his gaze fell upon a small black and whiteanimal nosing among some rocks near by. "Poor little devil! If it wakensany of the boys it will get a taste of hell out of proportion to itssins," he thought, and decided that he would drive it away before anyone else discovered it. But the languor of sleep
still held him and nota muscle moved as his eyelids began to droop. Then, through hishalf-shut eyes, he became conscious that something was moving, overagainst one of the houses, among the shadows. His eyelids lifted againand he saw the Mexican rise out of his blanket, look about, and in acrouching posture move stealthily toward him. Something in his handglittered in the moonlight.
"It's Jose," thought Conrad. "He's coming for the skunk with a can ofoil. Quick, or I'll be too late!" He sprang to a sitting posture andflung out one arm. As he did so he noticed with sleepy surprise thatJose was not facing toward the animal but was coming toward him. Then,before he had time to speak, the Mexican turned, a flying somethingshone in the moonlight like an electric flash, and Conrad's eyes,following the gleam, saw the little creature pinned to the ground with along knife through its neck and the gray sand darkening with its blood.
"Why, Jose, that was a wonderful throw!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, senor," the man replied quietly, as he stooped to draw out theknife and wipe it on the sand, "I am rather good at that sort of thing."