CHAPTER III. Bad News
Andy Green, that honest-eyed young man whom everyone loved, but whomnot a man believed save when he was indulging his love for more or lessfantastic flights of the imagination, pulled up on the brow of Flying Ucoulee and stared somberly at the picture spread below him. On the porchof the White House the hammock swung gently under the weight of theLittle Doctor, who pushed her shipper-toe mechanically against a postsupport at regular intervals while she read.
On the steps the Kid was crawling laboriously upward, only to descendagain quite as laboriously when he attained the top. One of the boys wasjust emerging from the blacksmith shop; from the build of him Andy knewit must be either Weary or Irish, though it would take a much closerobservation, and some familiarity with the two to identify the man moreexactly. In the corral were a swirl of horses and an overhanging cloudof dust, with two or three figures discernible in the midst, and awayin the little pasture two other figures were galloping after a fleeingdozen of horses. While he looked, old Patsy came out of the messhouse,and went, with flapping flour-sack apron, to the woodpile.
Peaceful it was, and home-like and contentedly prosperous; a littleworld tucked away in its hills, with its own little triumphs anddefeats, its own heartaches and rejoicings; a lucky little world,because its triumphs had been satisfying, its defeats small, itsheartaches brief, and its rejoicings untainted with harassment or guilt.Yet Andy stared down upon it with a frown; and, when he twitched thereins and began the descent, he sighed impatiently.
Past the stable he rode with scarcely a glance toward Weary, who shouteda casual "Hello" at him from the corral; through the big gate and up thetrail to the White House, and straight to the porch, where the LittleDoctor flipped a leaf of her magazine and glanced at him with a smile,and the Kid turned his plump body upon the middle step and wrinkled hisnose in a smile of recognition, while he threw out an arm in welcome,and made a wobbling effort to get upon his feet.
Andy smiled at the Kid, but his smile did not reach his eyes, and fadedalmost immediately. He glanced at the Little Doctor, sent his horse pastthe steps and the Kid, and close to the railing, so that he could leanand toss the mail into the Little Doctor's lap. There was a yellowenvelope among the letters, and her fingers singled it out curiously.Andy folded his hands upon the saddle-horn and watched her frankly.
"Must be from J. G.," guessed the Little Doctor, inserting a slim fingerunder the badly sealed flap. "I've been wondering if he wasn't goingto send some word--he's been gone a week--Baby! He's right betweenyour horse's legs, Andy! Oh-h--baby boy, what won't you do next?" Shescattered letters and papers from her lap and flew to the rescue. "Willhe kick, Andy? You little ruffian." She held out her arms coaxingly fromthe top of the steps, and her face, Andy saw when he looked at her, hadlost some of its color.
"The horse is quiet enough," he reassured her. "But at the same time Iwouldn't hand him out as a plaything for a kid." He leaned cautiouslyand peered backward.
"Oh--did you ever see such a child! Come to mother, Baby!" Her voice wasbecoming strained.
The Kid, wrinkling his nose, and jabbering unintelligibly at her, sothat four tiny teeth showed in his pink mouth, moved farther backward,and sat down violently under the horse's sweat-roughened belly. Hewriggled round so that he faced forward, reached out gleefully, caughtthe front fetlocks, and cried "Dup!" while he pulled. The Little Doctorturned white.
"He's all right," soothed Andy, and, leaning with a twist of his slimbody, caught the Kid firmly by the back of his pink dress, and liftedhim clear of danger. He came up with a red face, tossed the Kid into theeager arms of the Little Doctor, and soothed his horse with soft wordsand a series of little slaps upon the neck. He was breathing unevenly,because the Kid had really been in rather a ticklish position; but theLittle Doctor had her face hidden on the baby's neck and did not see.
"Where's Chip?" Andy turned to ride back to the stable, glancing towardthe telegram lying on the floor of the porch; and from it his eyes wentto the young woman trying to laugh away her trembling while she scoldedadoringly her adventurous man-child. He was about to speak again, butthought better of it, and sighed.
"Down at the stables somewhere--I don't know, really; the boys can tellyou. Mother's baby mustn't touch the naughty horses. Naughty horses hurtmother's baby! Make him cry!"
Andy gave her a long look, which had in it much pity, and rode away.He knew what was in that telegram, for the agent had told him when hehunted him up at Rusty Brown's and gave it to him; and the horse of Andybore mute testimony to the speed with which he had brought it to theranch. Not until he had reached the coulee had he slackened his pace.He decided, after that glance, that he would not remind her that shehad not read the telegram; instead, he thought he ought to find Chipimmediately and send him to her.
Chip was rummaging after something in the store-house, and, when Andysaw him there, he dismounted and stood blotting out the light fromthe doorway. Chip looked up, said "Hello" carelessly, and flung an oldslicker aside that he might search beneath it. "Back early, aren't you?"he asked, for sake of saying something.
Andy's attitude was not as casual as he would have had it.
"Say, maybe you better go on up to the house," he began diffidently. "Iguess your wife wants to see yuh, maybe."
"Just as a good wife should," grinned Chip. "What's the matter? Kid falloff the porch?"
"N-o-o--I brought out a wire from Chicago. It's from a doctorthere--some hospital. The--Old Man got hurt. One of them cussedautomobiles knocked him down. They want you to come."
Chip had straightened up and was hooking at Andy blankly. "If you'rejust--"
"Honest," Andy asserted, and flushed a little. "I'll go tell some one tocatch up the team--you'll want to make that 11:20, I take it." He added,as Chip went by him hastily, "I had the agent wire for sleeper berths onthe 11:20 so--"
"Thanks. Yes, you have the team caught up, Andy." Chip was already wellon his way to the house.
Andy waited till he saw the Little Doctor come hurriedly to the end ofthe porch overlooking the pathway, with the telegram fluttering in herfingers, and then led his horse down through the gate and to the stable.He yanked the saddle off, turned the tired animal into a stall, and wenton to the corral, where he leaned elbows on a warped rail and peeredthrough at the turmoil within. Close beside him stood Weary, with hisloop dragging behind him, waiting for a chance to throw it over the headof a buckskin three-year-old with black mane and tail.
"Get in here and make a hand, why don't you?" Weary bantered, his eyeon the buckskin. "Good chance to make a 'rep' for yourself, Andy.Gawd greased that buckskin--he sure can slide out from under a rope aseasy--"
He broke off to flip the hoop dexterously forward, had the reward ofseeing the buckskin dodge backward, so that the rope barely flicked himon the nose, and drew in his rope disgustedly. "Come on, Andy--my handsare up in the air; I can't land him--that's the fourth throw."
Andy's interest in the buckskin, however, was scant. His face was sober,his whole attitude one of extreme dejection.
"You got the tummy-ache?" Pink inquired facetiously, moving around sothat he got a fair look at his face.
"Naw--his girl's went back on him!" Happy Jack put in, coiling his ropeas he came up.
"Oh, shut up!" Andy's voice was sharp with trouble. "Boys, the OldMan's--well, he's most likely dead by this time. I brought out atelegram--"
"Go on!" Pink's eyes widened incredulously. "Don't you try that kind ofa load, Andy Green, or I'll just about--"
"Oh, you fellows make me sick!" Andy took his elbows off the rail andstood straight. "Dammit, the telegram's up at the house--go and read ityourselves, then!"
The three stared after him doubtfully, fear struggling with the cautionborn of much experience.
"He don't act, to me, like he was putting up a josh," Weary stateduneasily, after a minute of silence. "Run up to the house and find out,Cadwalloper. The Old Man--oh, good Lord!" The tan on Weary's face took alighter tinge. "Scoot
--it won't take but a minute to find out for sure.Go on, Pink."
"So help me Josephine, I'll kill that same Andy Green if he's lied aboutit," Pink declared, while he climbed the fence.
In three minutes he was back, and before he had said a word, his faceconfirmed the bad news. Their eyes besought him for details, and hegave them jerkily. "Automobile run over him. He ain't dead, but theythink--Chip and the Little Doctor are going to catch the night train.You go haze in the team, Happy. And give 'em a feed of oats, Chip said."
Irish and Big Medicine, seeing the three standing soberly togetherthere, and sensing something unusual, came up and heard the news instunned silence. Andy, forgetting his pique at their first disbelief,came forlornly back and stood with them.
The Old Man--the thing could not be true! To every man of them hispresence, conjured by the impending tragedy, was almost a palpablething. His stocky figure seemed almost to stand in their midst;he looked at them with his whimsical eyes, which had the radiatingcrows-feet of age, humor and habitual squinting against sun and wind;the bald spot on his head, the wrinkling shirt-collar that seldom knewa tie, the carpet slippers which were his favorite footgear because theywere kind to his bunions, his husky voice, good-naturedly complaining,were poignantly real to them at that moment. Then Irish mentallypictured him lying maimed, dying, perhaps, in a far-off hospital amongstrangers, and swore.
"If he's got to die, it oughta be here, where folks know him and--wherehe knows--" Irish was not accustomed to giving voice to his deeperfeelings, and he blundered awkwardly over it.
"I never did go much on them darned hospitals, anyway," Weary observedgloomily. "He oughta be home, where folks can look after him. Mam-ma! Itsure is a fright."
"I betche Chip and the Little Doctor won't get there in time," HappyJack predicted, with his usual pessimism. "The Old Man's gittin' old--"
"He ain't but fifty-two; yuh call that old, consarn yuh? He's youngerright now than you'll be when you're forty."
"Countess is going along, too, so she can ride herd on the Kid," Pinkinformed then. "I heard the Little Doctor tell her to pack up, and'never mind if she did have sponge all set!' Countess seemed to thinkher bread was a darned sight more important than the Old Man. That's theway with women. They'll pass up--"
"Well, by golly, I like to see a woman take some interest in her ownaffairs," Slim defended. "What they packin' up for, and where theygoin'?" Slim had just ridden up to the group in time to overhear Pink'scriticism.
They told him the news, and Slim swallowed twice, said "By golly!" quitehuskily, and then rode slowly away with his head bowed. He had workedfor the Flying U when it was strictly a bachelor outfit, and with thetenacity of slow minds he held J. G. Whitmore, his beloved "Old Man,"as but a degree lower than that mysterious power which made the sun toshine--and, if the truth were known, he had accepted him as being quiteas eternal. His loyalty adjusted everything to the interests of theFlying U. That the Old Man could die--the possibility stunned him.
They were a sorry company that gathered that night around the long tablewith its mottled oil-cloth covering and benches polished to a glass-likesmoothness with their own vigorous bodies. They did not talk much aboutthe Old Man; indeed, they came no nearer the subject than to ask Wearyif he were going to drive the team in to Dry Lake. They did not talkmuch about anything, for that matter; even the knives and forks seemedto share the general depression of spirits, and failed to give forth thecheerful clatter which was a daily accompaniment of meals in that room.
Old Patsy, he who had cooked for J. G. Whitmore when the Flying Ucoulee was a wilderness and the brand yet unrecorded and the ironsunmade--Patsy lumbered heavily about the room and could not find hisdish-cloth when it was squeezed tight in one great, fat hand, andunthinkingly started to fill their coffee cups from the tea-kettle.
"Py cosh, I vould keel der fool vot made her first von of derautomo-beels, yet!" he exclaimed unexpectedly, after a long silence, andcast his pipe vindictively toward his bunk in one corner.
The Happy Family looked around at him, then understandingly at oneanother.
"Same here, Patsy," Jack Bates agreed. "What they want of the damnedthings when the country's full uh good horses gits me."
"So some Yahoo with just sense enough to put goggles on to cover uphis fool face can run over folks he ain't good enough to speak to, bycripes!" Big Medicine glared aggressively up and down the table.
Weary got up suddenly and went out, and Slim followed him, though hissupper was half-uneaten.
"This goin' to be hard on the Little Doctor--only brother she's got,"they heard Happy Jack point out unnecessarily; and Weary, the equable,was guilty of slamming the door so that the whole building shook, by wayof demonstrating his dislike of speech upon the subject.
They were a sorry company who waved hands at the Little Doctor andthe Kid and the Countess, just when the afterglow of a red sunsetwas merging into the vague, purple shadows of coming dusk. They stoodsilent, for the most part, and let them go without the usual facetiousadvice to "Be good to yourselves," and the hackneyed admonition to Chipto keep out of jail if he could. There must have been something verywistful in their faces, for the Little Doctor smiled bravely down uponthen from the buggy seat, and lifted up the Kid for a four-toothed smileand an ecstatic "Bye!" accompanied by a vigorous flopping of hands,which included then all.
"We'll telegraph first thing, boys," the Little Doctor called back, asthe rig chucked into the pebbly creek crossing. "We'll keep you posted,and I'll write all the particulars as soon as I can. Don't think theworst--unless you have to. I don't." She smiled again, and waved herhand hastily because of the Kid's contortions; and, though the smilehad tears close behind it, though her voice was tremulous in spite ofherself, the Happy Family took heart from her courage and waved theirhats gravely, and smiled back as best they could.
"There's a lot uh cake you boys might just as well eat up," the Countesscalled belatedly. "It'll all dry out, if yuh don't--and there ain't nouse wastin' it--and there's two lemon pies in the brown cupboard, andwhat under the shinin' sun--" The wheels bumped violently against arock, and the Happy Family heard no more.