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"There's no use to run away from me," he said][_Page 166_]
THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE
BY
G. W. OGDEN
AUTHOR OF THE LAND OF LAST CHANCE
FRONTISPIECE BY P. V. E. IVORY
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
Copyright A. C. McClurg & Co. 1920
Published April, 1920
_Copyrighted in Great Britain_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The All-in-One 1
II Whetstone, the Outlaw 18
III An Empty Saddle 39
IV "And Speak in Passing" 47
V Feet upon the Road 69
VI Allurements of Glendora 81
VII The Homeliest Man 95
VIII The House on the Mesa 108
IX A Knight-Errant 114
X Guests of the Boss Lady 130
XI Alarms and Excursions 146
XII The Fury of Doves 166
XIII "No Honor in Her Blood" 185
XIV Notice Is Served 198
XV Wolves of the Range 218
XVI Whetstone Comes Home 238
XVII How Thick Is Blood? 255
XVIII The Rivalry of Cooks 270
XIX The Sentinel 276
XX Business, and More 289
XXI A Test of Loyalty 302
XXII The Will-o'-the-Wisp 320
XXIII Unmasked 329
XXIV Use for an Old Paper 333
XXV "When She Wakes Up" 345
XXVI Oysters and Ambitions 361
XXVII Emoluments and Rewards 374
The Duke of Chimney Butte
CHAPTER I
THE ALL-IN-ONE
Down through the Bad Lands the Little Missouri comes in long windings,white, from a distance, as a frozen river between the ash-gray hills. Atits margin there are willows; on the small forelands, which flood inJune when the mountain waters are released, cottonwoods grow, leaningtoward the southwest like captives straining in their bonds, yearning intheir way for the sun and winds of kinder latitudes.
Rain comes to that land but seldom in the summer days; in winter thewind sweeps the snow into rocky canons; buttes, with tops leveled by thedrift of the old, earth-making days, break the weary repetition of hillbeyond hill.
But to people who dwell in a land a long time and go about the businessof getting a living out of what it has to offer, its wonders are nolonger notable, its hardships no longer peculiar. So it was with thepeople who lived in the Bad Lands at the time that we come among them onthe vehicle of this tale. To them it was only an ordinary country oftoil and disappointment, or of opportunity and profit, according totheir station and success.
To Jeremiah Lambert it seemed the land of hopelessness, the lastboundary of utter defeat as he labored over the uneven road at the endof a blistering summer day, trundling his bicycle at his side. There wasa suit-case strapped to the handlebar of the bicycle, and in thatreceptacle were the wares which this guileless peddler had come intothat land to sell. He had set out from Omaha full of enthusiasm andyouthful vigor, incited to the utmost degree of vending fervor by therepresentations of the general agent for the little instrument which hadbeen the stepping-stone to greater things for many an ambitious youngman.
According to the agent, Lambert reflected, as he pushed his punctured,lop-wheeled, disordered, and dejected bicycle along; there had beennone of the ambitious business climbers at hand to add his testimony tothe general agent's word.
Anyway, he had taken the agency, and the agent had taken his essentialtwenty-two dollars and turned over to him one hundred of those notableladders to future greatness and affluence. Lambert had them there in hisimitation-leather suit-case--from which the rain had taken the lastdeceptive gloss--minus seven which he had sold in the course of fifteendays.
In those fifteen days Lambert had traveled five hundred miles, by thepower of his own sturdy legs, by the grace of his bicycle, which hadheld up until this day without protest over the long, sandy, rocky,dismal roads, and he had lived on less than a gopher, day taken by day.
Housekeepers were not pining for the combination potato-parer,apple-corer, can-opener, tack-puller, known as the "All-in-One" in anyreasonable proportion.
It did not go. Indisputably it was a good thing, and well built, andfinished like two dollars' worth of cutlery. The selling price, retail,was one dollar, and it looked to an unsophisticated young graduate ofan agricultural college to be a better opening toward independence andthe foundation of a farm than a job in the hay fields. A man must makehis start somewhere, and the farther away from competition the betterhis chance.
This country to which the general agent had sent him was becoming moreand more sparsely settled. The chances were stretching out against himwith every mile. The farther into that country he should go the smallerwould become the need for that marvelous labor-saving invention.
Lambert had passed the last house before noon, when his sixty-five-poundbicycle had suffered a punctured tire, and there had bargained with aScotch woman at the greasy kitchen door with the smell of curingsheepskins in it for his dinner. It took a good while to convince thewoman that the All-in-One was worth it, but she yielded out of pity forhis hungry state. From that house he estimated that he had made fifteenmiles before the tire gave out; since then he had added ten or twelvemore to the score. Nothing that looked like a house was in sight, andit was coming on dusk.
He labored on, bent in spirit, sore of foot. From the rise of a hill,when it had fallen so dark that he was in doubt of the road, he heard avoice singing. And this was the manner of the song:
_Oh, I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss, An' a hoo-dah, an' a hoo-dah; I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss, An' a hoo-dah bet on the bay._
The singer was a man, his voice an aggravated tenor with a shake to itlike an accordion, and he sang that stanza over and over as Lambertleaned on his bicycle and listened.
Lambert went down the hill. Presently the shape of trees began to formout of the valley. Behind that barrier the man was doing his singing,his voice now rising clear, now falling to distance as if he passed toand from, in and out of a door, or behind some object which broke theflow of sound. A whiff of coffee, presently, and the noise of the manbreaking dry sticks, as with his foot, jarring his voice to a deepertremolo. Now the light, with the legs of the man in it, showing acow-camp, the chuck wagon in the foreground, the hope of hospitality bigin its magnified proportions.
Beyond the fire where the singing cook worked, men were unsaddling theirhorses and turning them into the corral. Lambert trundled his bicycleinto the firelight, hailing the cook with a cheerful word.
The cook had a tin plate in his hands, which he was wiping on a floursack. At sight of this singular combination of man and wheels he leanedforward in astonishment, his song bitten off between two words, the tinplate before his chest, the drying operations suspended. Amazement wason him, if not fright. Lambert put his hand into his hip-pocket and drewforth a shining All-in-One
, which he always had ready there to produceas he approached a door.
He stood there with it in his hand, the firelight over him, smiling inhis most ingratiating fashion. That had been one of the strong texts ofthe general agent. Always meet them with a smile, he said, and leavethem with a smile, no matter whether they deserved it or not. It proveda man's unfaltering confidence in himself and the article which hepresented to the world.
Lambert was beginning to doubt even this paragraph of his generalinstructions. He had been smiling until he believed his eye-teeth werewearing thin from exposure, but it seemed the one thing that had a grainin it among all the buncombe and bluff. And he stood there smiling atthe camp cook, who seemed to be afraid of him, the tin plate held beforehis gizzard like a shield.
There was nothing about Lambert's appearance to scare anybody, and leastof all a bow-legged man beside a fire in the open air of the Bad Lands,where things are not just as they are in any other part of this world atall. His manner was rather boyish and diffident, and wholly apologetic,and the All-in-One glistened in his hand like a razor, or a revolver, oranything terrible and destructive that a startled camp cook might makeit out to be.
A rather long-legged young man, in canvas puttees, a buoyant andirrepressible light in his face which the fatigues and disappointmentsof the long road had not dimmed; a light-haired man, with his hat pushedback from his forehead, and a speckled shirt on him, and trousers rathertight--that was what the camp cook saw, standing exactly as he hadturned and posed at Lambert's first word.
Lambert drew a step nearer, and began negotiations for supper on thebasis of an even exchange.
"Oh, agent, are you?" said the cook, letting out a breath of relief.
"No; peddler."
"I don't know how to tell 'em apart. Well, put it away, son, put itaway, whatever it is. No hungry man don't have to dig up his money toeat in this camp."
This was the kindest reception that Lambert had received since taking tothe road to found his fortunes on the All-in-One. He was quick with hisexpression of appreciation, which the cook ignored while he went aboutthe business of lighting two lanterns which he hung on the wagon end.
Men came stringing into the light from the noise of unsaddling at thecorral with loud and jocund greetings to the cook, and respectful, evendistant and reserved, "evenin's" for the stranger. All of them but thecook wore cartridge-belts and revolvers, which they unstrapped and hungabout the wagon as they arrived. All of them, that is, but oneblack-haired, tall young man. He kept his weapon on, and sat down to eatwith it close under his hand.
Nine or ten of them sat in at the meal, with a considerable clashing ofcutlery on tin plates and cups. It was evident to Lambert that hispresence exercised a restraint over their customary exchange of banter.In spite of the liberality of the cook, and the solicitation on part ofhis numerous hosts to "eat hearty," Lambert could not help the feelingthat he was away off on the edge, and that his arrival had put a rein onthe spirits of these men.
Mainly they were young men like himself, two or three of them onlybetrayed by gray in beards and hair; brown, sinewy, lean-jawed men, nodissipation showing in their eyes.
Lambert felt himself drawn to them by a sense of kinship. He never hadbeen in a cow-camp before in his life, but there was something in theair of it, in the dignified ignoring of the evident hardships of such alife that told him he was among his kind.
The cook was a different type of man from the others, and seemed to havebeen pitched into the game like the last pawn of a desperate player. Hewas a short man, thick in the body, heavy in the shoulders, sobow-legged that he weaved from side to side like a sailor as he wentswinging about his work. It seemed, indeed, that he must have taken to ahorse very early in life, while his legs were yet plastic, for they hadset to the curve of the animal's barrel like the bark on a tree.
His black hair was cut short, all except a forelock like a horse,leaving his big ears naked and unframed. These turned away from his headas if they had been frosted and wilted, and if ears ever stood as anindex to generosity in this world the camp cook's at once pronounced himthe most liberal man to be met between the mountains and the sea. Hisfeatures were small, his mustache and eyebrows large, his nose sharpand thin, his eyes blue, and as bright and merry as a June day.
He wore a blue wool shirt, new and clean, with a bright scarlet necktieas big as a hand of tobacco; and a green velvet vest, a galloping horseon his heavy gold watch-chain, and great, loose, baggy corduroytrousers, like a pirate of the Spanish Main. These were folded intoexpensive, high-heeled, quilted-topped boots, and, in spite of histrade, there was not a spot of grease or flour on him anywhere to beseen.
Lambert noted the humorous glances which passed from eye to eye, and thesly winks that went round the circle of cross-legged men with tin platesbetween their knees as they looked now and then at his bicycle leaningclose by against a tree. But the exactions of hospitality appeared tokeep down both curiosity and comment during the meal. Nobody asked himwhere he came from, what his business was, or whither he was bound,until the last plate was pitched into the box, the last cup drained ofits black, scalding coffee.
It was one of the elders who took it up then, after he had his pipegoing and Lambert had rolled a cigarette from the proffered pouch.
"What kind of a horse is that you're ridin', son?" he inquired.
"Have a look at it," Lambert invited, knowing that the machine was newto most, if not all, of them. He led the way to the bicycle, theyunlimbering from their squatting beside the wagon and following.
He took the case containing his unprofitable wares from the handlebarsand turned the bicycle over to them, offering no explanations on itspeculiarities or parts, speaking only when they asked him, in horseparlance, with humor that broadened as they put off their reserve. Oninvitation to show its gait he mounted it, after explaining that it hadstepped on a nail and traveled lamely. He circled the fire and came backto them, offering it to anybody who might want to try his skill.
Hard as they were to shake out of the saddle, not a man of them, old oryoung, could mount the rubber-shod steed of the city streets. All ofthem gave it up after a tumultuous hour of hilarity but the bow-leggedcook, whom they called Taterleg. He said he never had laid much claimto being a horseman, but if he couldn't ride a long-horned Texas steerthat went on wheels he'd resign his job.
He took it out into the open, away from the immediate danger of acollision with a tree, and squared himself to break it in. He got itgoing at last, cheered by loud whoops of admiration and encouragement,and rode it straight into the fire. He scattered sticks and coals andbore a wabbling course ahead, his friends after him, shouting and wavinghats. Somewhere in the dark beyond the lanterns he ran into a tree.
But he came back pushing the machine, his nose skinned, sweating andtriumphant, offering to pay for any damage he had done. Lambert assuredhim there was no damage. They sat down to smoke again, all of themfeeling better, the barrier against the stranger quite down, everythingcomfortable and serene.
Lambert told them, in reply to kindly, polite questioning from the elderof the bunch, a man designated by the name Siwash, how he was latelygraduated from the Kansas Agricultural College at Manhattan, and how hehad taken the road with a grip full of hardware to get enough ballastin his jeans to keep the winter wind from blowing him away.
"Yes, I thought that was a college hat you had on," said Siwash.
Lambert acknowledged its weakness.
"And that shirt looked to me from the first snort I got at it like acollege shirt. I used to be where they was at one time."
Lambert explained that an aggie wasn't the same as a regular collegefellow, such as they turn loose from the big factories in the East,where they thicken their tongues to the broad a and call it aneducation; nothing like that, at all. He went into the details of thegreat farms manned by the students, the bone-making, as well as thebrain-making work of such an institution as the one whose shadows he hadlately left.
"I
ain't a-findin' any fault with them farmer colleges," Siwash said. "Iworked for a man in Montanny that sent his boy off to one of 'em, andthat feller come back and got to be state vet'nary. I ain't got nothingag'in' a college hat, as far as that goes, neither, but I know 'em whenI see 'em--I can spot 'em every time. Will you let us see themDo-it-Alls?"
Lambert produced one of the little implements, explained its points, andit passed from hand to hand, with comments which would have been worthgold to the general agent.
"It's a toothpick and a tater-peeler put together," said Siwash, when itcame back to his hand. The young fellow with the black, sleek hair, whokept his gun on, reached for it, bent over it in the light, examining itwith interest.
"You can trim your toenails with it and half-sole your boots," he said."You can shave with it and saw wood, pull teeth and brand mavericks; youcan open a bottle or a bank with it, and you can open the hired gal'seyes with it in the mornin'. It's good for the old and the young, forthe crippled and the in-sane; it'll heat your house and hoe your garden,and put the children to bed at night. And it's made and sold anddistributed by Mr.--Mr.--by the Duke----"
Here he bent over it a little closer, turning it in the light to seewhat was stamped in the metal beneath the words "The Duke," that beingthe name denoting excellence which the manufacturer had given the tool.
"By the Duke of--the Duke of--is them three links of saursage, Siwash?"
Siwash looked at the triangle under the name.
"No, that's Indian writin'; it means a mountain," he said.
"Sure, of course, I might 'a' knowed," the young man said with deepself-scorn. "That's a butte, that's old Chimney Butte, as plain assmoke. Made and sold and distributed in the Bad Lands by the Duke ofChimney Butte. Duke," said he solemnly, rising and offering his hand,"I'm proud to know you."
There was no laughter at this; it was not time to laugh yet. They satlooking at the young man, primed and ready for the big laugh, indeed,but holding it in for its moment. As gravely as the cowboy had risen, assolemnly as he held his countenance in mock seriousness, Lambert roseand shook hands with him.
"The pleasure is mostly mine," said he, not a flush of embarrassment orresentment in his face, not a quiver of the eyelid as he looked theother in the face, as if this were some high and mighty occasion, intruth.
"And you're all right, Duke, you're sure all right," the cowboy said, anote of admiration in his voice.
"I'd bet you money he's all right," Siwash said, and the others echoedit in nods and grins.
The cowboy sat down and rolled a cigarette, passed his tobacco across toLambert, and they smoked. And no matter if his college hat had been onlyhalf as big as it was, or his shirt ring-streaked and spotted, theywould have known the stranger for one of their kind, and accepted him assuch.