CHAPTER XI. Weary Unburdens
Hungry with the sharp, gnawing hunger of healthy stomachs accustomedto regular and generous feeding; tired with the weariness of healthymuscles pushed past their accustomed limit of action; and hot with theunaccustomed heat of a blazing day shunted unaccountably into the midstof soft spring weather, the Happy Family rode out of the embrace ofthe last barren coulee and up on the wide level where the breeze sweptgratefully up from the west, and where every day brought with it adeeper tinge of green into its grassy carpet.
Only for this harassment of the Dot sheep, the roundup wagons wouldbe loaded and ready to rattle abroad over the land. Meadow larks andcurlews and little, pert-eyed ground sparrows called out to them thatroundup time was come. They passed a bunch of feeding Flying U cattle,and flat-ribbed, bandy-legged calves galloped in brief panic to theirmothers and from the sanctuary of grass-filled paunches watched theriders with wide, inquisitive eyes.
"We ought to be starting out, by now," Weary observed a bit gloomily toAndy and Pink, who rode upon either side of him. "The calf crop is goingto be good, if this weather holds on another two weeks or so. But--" hewaved his cigarette disgustedly "--that darned Dot outfit would be allover the place, if we pulled out on roundup and left 'em the run ofthings." He smoked moodily for a minute. "My religion has changed a lotin the last few days," he observed whimsically. "My idea of hell isa place where there ain't anything but sheep and sheepherders; andcowpunchers have got to spend thousands uh years right in the middle ofthe corrals."
"If that's the case, I'm going to quit cussing, and say my prayers everynight," Andy Green asserted emphatically.
"What worries me," Weary confided, obeying the impulse to talk over histroubles with those who sympathized, "is how I'm going to keep the workgoing along like it ought to, and at the same time keep them Dot sheepouta the house. Dunk's wise, all right. He knows enough about the cowbusiness to know we ye got to get out on the range pretty quick, now.And he's so mean that every day or every half day he can feed his sheepon Flying U grass, he calls that much to the good. And he knows we won'tgo to opening up any real gun-fights if we can get out of it; he countson our faunching around and kicking up a lot of dust, maybe--but wewon't do anything like what he'd do, in our places. He knows the Old Manand Chip are gone, and he knows we've just naturally got to sit back andswallow our tongues because we haven't any authority. Mamma! It comespretty tough, when a low-down skunk like that just banks on your doingthe square thing. He wouldn't do it, but he knows we will; and so hetakes advantage of white men and gets the best of 'em. And if we shouldhappen to break out and do something, he knows the herders would be theones to get it in the neck; and he'd wait till the dust settled, and bobup with the sheriff--" He waved his hand again with a hopeless gesture."It may not look that way on the face of it," he added gloomily, "butDunk has got us right where he wants us. From the way they've beenletting sheep on our land, time and time again, I'd gamble he's justtrying to make us so mad we'll break out. He's got it in for the wholeoutfit, from the Old Man and the Little Doctor down to Slim. If any ofus boys got into trouble, the Old Man would spend his last cent to clearus; and Dunk knows that just as well as he knows the way from the houseto the stable. He'd see to it that it would just about take the OldMan's last cent, too. And he's using these Dot sheep like you'd use ared flag on a bull, to make us so crazy mad we'll kill off somebody.
"That's why," he said to them all when he saw that they had ridden upclose that they might hear what he was saying, "I've been hollering soloud for the meek-and-mild stunt. When I slapped him on the jaw, and hestood there and took it, I saw his game. He had a witness to swear I hithim and he didn't hit back. And when I saw them Dots in our field again,I knew, just as well as if Dunk had told me, that he was kinda hopingwe'd kill a herder or two so he could cinch us good and plenty. I don'tsay," he qualified with a rueful grin, "that Dunk went into the sheepbusiness just to get r-re-venge, as they say in shows. But if he canmake money running sheep--and he can, all right, because there's moremoney in them right now than there is in cattle--and at the same timeget a good whack at the Flying U, he's the lad that will sure make arunning jump at the chance." He spat upon the burnt end of his cigarettestub from force of the habit that fear of range fires had built, andcast it petulantly from him; as if he would like to have been able tothrow Dunk and his sheep problem as easily out of his path.
"So I wish you boys would hang onto yourselves when you hear a sheepblatting under your window," he summed up his unburdening whimsically."As Bud said this morning, you can't hang a man for telling asheepherder you'll take off his shoes. And they can't send us over theroad for moving that band of sheep onto new range to-day. Last nightyou all were kinda disorderly, maybe, but you didn't hurt anybody, ordestroy any property. You see what I mean. Our only show is to stop withour toes on the right side of the dead line."
"If Andy, here, would jest git his think-wheels greased and going good,"Big Medicine suggested loudly, "he ought to frame up something thatwould put them Dots on the run permanent. I d'no, by cripes, why it isa feller can always think uh lies and joshes by the dozens, and put 'emover O. K. when there ain't nothing to be made out of it except hardfeelin's; and then when a deal like this here sheep deal comes up, he'sgot about as many idees, by cripes, as that there line-back calf overthere. Honest to grandma, Andy makes me feel kinda faint. Only time hedid have a chanc't, he let them--" It occurred to Big Medicine at thatpoint that perhaps his remarks might be construed by the object ofthem as being offensively personal. He turned his head and grinnedgood-naturedly in Andy's direction, and refrained from finishing what hewas going to say. "I sure do like them wind-flowers scattered allover the ground," he observed with such deliberate and ostentatiousirrelevance that the Happy Family laughed, even to Andy Green, who hadat first been inclined toward anger.
"Everything," declared Andy in the tone of a paid instructor, "has itsproper time and place, boys; I've told you that before. For instance, Iwouldn't try to kill a skunk by talking it to death; and I wouldn'tbe hopeful of putting the run on this Dunk person by telling him ghoststories. As to ideas--I'm plumb full of them. But they're all aboutgrub, just right at present."
That started Slim and Happy Jack to complaining because no one had hadsense enough to go back after some lunch before taking that long trailsouth; the longer because it was a slow one, with sheep to set the pace.And by the time they had presented their arguments against the HappyFamily's having enough brains to last them overnight, and the HappyFamily had indignantly pointed out just where the mental deficiency wasmost noticeable, they were upon that last, broad stretch of "bench" landbeyond which lay Flying U coulee and Patsy and dinner; a belated dinner,to be sure, but for that the more welcome.
And when they reached the point where they could look away to thevery rim of the coulee, they saw sheep--sheep to the skyline, feedingscattered and at ease, making the prairie look, in the distance, asif it were covered with a thin growth of gray sage-brush. Four herdersmoved slowly upon the outskirts, and the dogs were little, scurrying,black dots which stopped occasionally to wait thankfully until themaster-minds again urged them to endeavor.
The Happy Family drew up and stared in silence.
"Do I see sheep?" Pink inquired plaintively at last. "Tell me,somebody."
"It's that bunch you fellows tackled last night," said Weary miserably."I ought to have had sense enough to leave somebody on the ranch to lookout for this."
"They've got their nerve," stated Irish, "after the deal they got lastnight. I'd have bet good money that you couldn't drag them herdersacross Flying U coulee with a log chain."
"Say, by golly, do we have to drive this here bunch anywheres before wegit anything to eat?" Slim wanted to know distressfully.
Weary considered briefly. "No, I guess we'll pass 'em up for thepresent. An hour or so won't make much difference in the long run, andour horses are about all in, right now--"
"So'm I, by cripes!" Big Medicine a
ttested, grinning mirthlessly. "Thishere sheep business is plumb wearin' on a man. 'Specially," he addedwith a fretful note, "when you've got to handle 'em gentle. The thingsI'd like to do to them Dots is all ruled outa the game, seems like.Honest to grandma, a little gore would look better to me right now thana Dutch picnic before the foam's all blowed off the refreshments. Lemmekill off jest one herder, Weary?" he pleaded. "The one that took a shotat me las' night. Purty, please!"
"If you killed one," Weary told him glumly, "you might as well make aclean sweep and take in the whole bunch."
"Well, I won't charge nothin' extra fer that, either," Bud assured himgenerously. "I'm willin' to throw in the other three--and the dawgs,too, by cripes!" He goggled the Happy Family quizzically. "Nobody can'tsay there's anything small about me. Why, down in the Coconino countrythey used to set half a dozen greasers diggin' graves, by cripes, soonas I started in to argy with a man. It was a safe bet they'd need threeor four, anyways, if old Bud cut loose oncet. Sheepherders? Why, theyjest natcherly couldn't keep enough on hand, securely, to run theirsheep. They used to order sheepherders like they did woolsacks, bycripes! You could always tell when I was in the country, by the numberuh extra herders them sheep outfits always kep' in reserve. Honest tograndma, I've knowed two or three outfits to club together and ship ina carload at a time, when they heard I was headed their way. And so whenit comes to killin' off four, why that ain't skurcely enough to make itworth m'while to dirty up m'gun!"
"Aw, I betche yuh never killed a man in your life!" Happy Jack grumbledin his characteristic tone of disparagement; but such was his respectfor Big Medicine's prowess that he took care not to speak loud enoughto be overheard by that modest gentleman, who continued with certainfearsome details of alleged murderous exploits of his own, down inCoconino County, Arizona.
But as they passed the detested animals, thankful that the trailpermitted them to ride by at a distance sufficient to blur the mostunsavory details, even Big Medicine gave over his deliberate boastingsand relapsed into silence.
He had begun his fantastic vauntings from an instinctive impulseto leaven with humor a situation which, at the moment, could not bebettered. Just as they had, when came the news of the Old Man's direplight, sought to push the tragedy of it into the background and clingto their creed of optimism, they had avoided openly facing the sheepcomplication squarely with mutual admissions of all it might mean to theFlying U.
Until Weary had unburdened his heart of worry on the ride home that day,they had not said much about it, beyond a general vilification of thesheep industry as a whole, of Dunk as the chief of the encroaching Dots,and of the herders personally.
But there were times when they could not well avoid thinking ratherdeeply upon the subject, even if they did refuse to put theirforebodings into speech. They were not children; neither were they toany degree lacking in intelligence. Swearing, about herders and at them,was all very well; bluffing, threatening, pummeling even with willingfists, tearing down tents and binding men with ropes might serve torelieve the emotions upon occasion. But there was the grim economicproblem which faced squarely the Flying U as a "cow outfit"--the problemof range and water; the Happy Family did not call it by name, but theyrealized to the full what it meant to the Old Man to have sheep justover his boundary line always. They realized, too, what it meant to havethe Old Man absent at this time--worse, to have him lying in ahospital, likely to die at any moment; what it meant to have the wholeresponsibility shifted to their shoulders, willing though they might beto bear the burden; what it meant to have the general of an army gonewhen the enemy was approaching in overwhelming numbers.
Pink, when they were descending the first slope of the bluff which wasthe southern rim of Flying U coulee, turned and glared vindictively backat the wavering, gray blanket out there to the west. When he faced tothe front his face had the look it wore when he was fighting.
"So help me, Josephine!" he gritted desperately, "we've got to clean therange of them Dots before the Old Man comes back, or--" He snapped hisjaws shut viciously.
Weary turned haggard eyes toward him.
"How?" he asked simply. And Pink had no answer for him.