CHAPTER VII. Truth Crushed to Earth, etc.
Andy, only half awake, tried to obey both instinct and habit and reachup to pull his hat down over his eyes, so that the sun could not shineupon his lids so hotly; when he discovered that he could do no more thanwiggle his fingers, he came back with a jolt to reality and tried to situp. It is surprising to a man to discover suddenly just how important apart his arms play in the most simple of body movements; Andy, with hisarms pinioned tightly the whole length of them, rolled over on his face,kicked a good deal, and rolled back again, but he did not sit up, as hehad confidently expected to do.
He lay absolutely quiet for at least five minutes, staring up at thebrilliant blue arch above him. Then he began to speak rapidly andearnestly; a man just close enough to hear his voice sweeping up to acertain rhetorical climax, pausing there and commencing again with arhythmic fluency of intonation, might have thought that he was repeatingpoetry; indeed, it sounded like some of Milton's majestic blankverse, but it was not. Andy was engaged in a methodical, scientific,reprehensibly soul-satisfying period of swearing.
A curlew, soaring low, with long beak outstretched before him, andlong legs outstretched behind cast a beady eye upon him, and shrilled"Cor-reck! Cor-reck!" in unregenerate approbation of the blasphemy.
Andy stopped suddenly and laughed. "Glad you agree with me, old sport,"he addressed the bird whimsically, with a reaction to his normallycheerful outlook. "Sheepherders are all those things I named over,birdie, and some that I can't think of at present."
He tried again, this time with a more careful realization of hislimitations, to assume an upright position; and being a perseveringyoung man, and one with a ready wit, he managed at length to wrigglehimself back upon the slope from which he had slid in his sleep, and, bydigging in his heels and going carefully, he did at last rise upon hisknees, and from there triumphantly to his feet.
He had at first believed that one of the herders would, in the courseof an hour or so, return and untie him, when he hoped to be able toretrieve, in a measure, his self-respect, which he had lost when thefirst three feet of his own rope had encircled him. To be tied andtrussed by sheepherders! Andy gritted his teeth and started down thecoulee.
He was hungry, and his lunch was tied to his saddle. He looked eagerlydown the coulee, in the faint hope of seeing his horse grazing somewherealong its length, until the numbness of his arms and hands reminded himthat forty lunches, tied upon forty saddles at his side, would be of nouse to him in his present position. His hands he could not move from histhighs; he could wiggle his fingers--which he did, to relieve as muchas possible that unpleasant, prickly sensation which we call a "going tosleep" of the afflicted members. When it occurred to him that he couldnot do anything with his horse if he found it, he gave up looking for itand started for the ranch, walking awkwardly, because of his bonds, thesun shining hotly upon his brown head, because his hat had been knockedoff in the scuffle, and he could not pick it up and put it back where itbelonged.
Taking a straight course across the prairie, he struck Flying U couleeat the point where the sheep had left it. On the way there he hadcrossed their trail where they went through the fence farther alongthe coulee than before, and therefore with a better chance of passingundetected; especially since the Happy Family, believing that he wasforcing them steadily to the north, would not be watching for sheep. Thebarbed wire barrier bothered him somewhat. He was compelled to lie downand roll under the fence, in the most undignified manner, and, when hewas through, there was the problem of getting upon his feet again. Buthe managed it somehow, and went on down the coulee, perspiring with theheat and a bitter realization of his ignominy. What the Happy Familywould have to say when they saw him, even Andy Green's vivid imaginationdeclined to picture.
He knew by the sun that it was full noon when he came in sight of thestable and corrals, and his soul sickened at the thought of facing thatderisive bunch of punchers, with their fiendish grins and their barbedtongues. But he was hungry, and his arms had reached the limit ofprickly sensations and were numb to his shoulders. He shook his hairback from his beaded forehead, cast a wary glance at the silent stables,set his jaw, and went on up the hill to the mess-house, wishing tardilythat he had waited until they were off at work again, when he mightintimidate old Patsy into keeping quiet about his predicament.
Within the mess-house was the clatter of knives and forks plied byhungry men, the sound of desultory talk and a savory odor of goodthings to eat. The door was closed. Andy stood before it as aguilty-conscienced child stands before its teacher; clicked his teethtogether, and, since he could not open the door, lifted his right footand gave it a kick to strain the hinges.
Within were exclamations of astonishment, silence and then a heavytread. Patsy opened the door, gasped and stood still, his eyes poppingout like a startled rabbit.
"Well, what's eating you?" Andy demanded querulously, and pushed pasthim into the room.
Not all of the Happy Family were there. Cal, Jack Bates, Irish andHappy Jack had gone into the Bad Lands next to the river; but there wereenough left to make the soul of Andy quiver forebodingly, and to sendthe flush of extreme humiliation to his cheeks.
The Happy Family looked at him in stunned surprise; then they glanced atone another in swift, wordless inquiry, grinned wisely and warily, andwent on with their dinner. At least they pretended to go on withtheir dinner, while Andy glared at them with amazed reproach in hismisleadingly honest gray eyes.
"When you've got plenty of time," he said at last in a choked tone,"maybe one of you obliging cusses will untie this damned rope."
"Why, sure!" Pink threw a leg over the bench and got up with cheerfulalacrity. "I'll do it now, if you say so; I didn't know but what thatwas some new fad of yours, like--"
"Fad!" Andy repeated the word like an explosion.
"Well, by golly, Andy needn't think I'm goin' to foller that therestyle," Slim stated solemnly. "I need m' rope for something else than totie n' clothes on with."
"I sure do hate to see a man wear funny things just to make himselfconspicuous," Pink observed, while he fumbled at the knot, which wasintricate. Andy jerked away from him that he might face him ragefully.
"Maybe this looks funny to you," he cried, husky with wrath. "But Ican't seem to see the joke, myself. I admit I let then herders makea monkey of me.... They slipped up behind, going down into Antelopecoulee, and slid down the bluff onto me; and, before I could get up,they got me tied, all right. I licked one of 'en before that, andthought I had 'en gentled down--"
Andy stopped short, silenced by that unexplainable sense which warns uswhen our words are received with cold disbelief.
"Mh-hm--I thought maybe you'd run up against a hostile jackrabbit, orsomething," Pink purred, and went back to his place on the bench.
"Haw-haw-haw-w-w!" came Big Medicine's tardy bellow. "That's morereasonable than the sheepherder story, by cripes!"
Andy looked at them much as he had stared up at the sky before he beganto swear--speechlessly, with a trembling of the muscles around hismouth. He was quite white, considering how tanned he was, and hisforehead was shiny, with beads of perspiration standing thickly upon it.
"Weary, I wish you'd untie this rope. I can't." He spoke still in thatpeculiar, husky tone, and, when the last words were out, his teeth wenttogether with a snap.
Weary glanced inquiringly across at the Native Son, who was regardingAndy steadily, as one gazes upon a tangled rope, looking for the endwhich will easiest lead to an untangling.
Miguel's brown eyes turned languidly to meet the look. "You'd betteruntie him," he advised in his soft drawl. "He may not be in the habit ofdoing it--but he's telling the truth."
"Untie me, Miguel," begged Andy, going over to him, "and let me at thisbunch."
"I'll do it," said Weary, and rose pacifically. "I kinda believe youmyself, Andy. But you can't blame the boys none; you've fooled 'em tillthey're dead shy of anything they can't see through. And, besides, itsure does
look like a plant. I'd back you single-handed against a dozensheepherders like then two we've been chasing around. If I hadn't feltthat way I wouldn't have sent yuh out alone with 'em."
"Well, Andy needn't think he's goin' to stick me on that there story,"Slim declared with brutal emphasis. "I've swallered too many baits,by golly. He's figurin' on gettin' us all out on the war-path, runnin'around in circles, so's't he can give us the laugh. I'll bet, by golly,he paid then herders to tie him up like that. He can't fool me!"
"Say, Slim, I do believe your brains is commencin' to sprout!" BigMedicine thumped him painfully upon the back by way of accenting thecompliment. "You got the idee, all right."
Andy stood quiet while Weary unwound the rope; lifted his numbed armswith some difficulty, and displayed to the doubters his rope-creasedwrists, and purple, swollen hands.
"I couldn't fight a caterpiller right now," he said thickly. "Look atthem hands! Do yuh call that a josh? I've been tied up like a bed-rollfor five hours, you--" Well, never mind, he merely repeated a part ofwhat he had recited aloud in Antelope coulee, the only difference beingthat he applied the vitriolic utterances to the Happy Family instead ofto sheepherders, and that with the second recitation he gained much influency and dramatic delivery.
It is not nice for a man to swear; to swear the way Andy did, at anyrate. But the result perhaps atoned in a measure for the wickedness, inthat the Happy Family were absolutely convinced of his sincerity, andthe feelings of Andy greatly relieved, so that, when he had for thethird time that day completely exhausted his vocabulary, he sat down andbegan to eat his dinner with a keen appetite.
"I don't suppose you know where your horse is at, by this tine," Wearyobserved, as casually as possible, breaking a somewhat constrainedsilence.
"I don't--and I don't give a darn," Andy snapped back. He ate a fewmouthfuls, and added less savagely: "He wasn't in sight, as I camealong. I didn't follow the trail; I struck straight across and came downthe coulee. He may be at the gate, and he may be down toward Rogers'."
Pink reached for a toothpick, eyeing Andy side-long; dimpled his cheeksdisarmingly, and cleared his throat. "Please don't kill me off when youget that pie swallowed," he began pacifically. "Strange as it may seem,I believe you, Andy. What I want to know is this: Who owns them Dots?And what are they chasing all over the Flying U range for? It looksplumb malicious, to me. Did you find out anything about 'en, Andy, whileyou--er--while they--" His eyes twinkled and betrayed him for an arrantpretender. (Pink was not afraid of anything on earth--least of all AndyGreen.)
"I will kill yuh by inches, if I hear any remarks out of yuh thatain't respectful," Andy promised, thawing to his normal tone, which waspleasant to the ear. "I didn't find out much about 'em. The fellow Ilicked told me that Whittaker and Oleson owned the sheep. He didn'tsay--"
"Well--by--golly!" Shin thrust his head forward belligerently."Whittaker! Well, what d'yuh think uh that!" He glared from one faceto the other, his gaze at last resting upon Weary. "Say, do yuh reckonit's--Dunk?"
Weary paid no heed to Slim. He leaned forward, his face turned to Andywith that concentration of attention which means so much more than mereexclamation. "You're sure he said Whittaker?" he asked.
His tone and his attitude arrested Andy's cup midway to his mouth."Sure--Whittaker and Oleson. I never heard of the outfit--who's thisWhittaker person?"
Weary settled back in his place and smiled, but his eyes had quite losttheir habitually sunny expression.
"Up until four years ago," he explained evenly, "he was the Old Man'spartner. We caught him in some mighty dirty work, and--well, he soldout to the Old Man. The old party with the hoofs and tail can't beeverywhere at once, the way I've got it sized up, so he turns some ofhis business over to other folks. Dunk Whittaker's his top hand."
"Why, by golly, he framed up a job on the Gordon boys, and railroaded'em to the pen, just--"
"Oh, that's the gazabo!" Andy's eyes shone with enlightenment. "I'veheard a lot about Dunk, but I didn't know his last name--"
"Say! I'll bet they're the outfit that bought out Denson. That's why oldDenson acted so queer, maybe. Selling to a sheep outfit would make theold devil feel kinda uneasy, talking to us--" Pink's eyes were big andpurple with excitement. "And that train-load of sheep we saw Sunday,I'll bet is the same identical outfit."
"Dunk Whittaker'd better not try to monkey with me, by golly!" Slim'sface was lowering. "And he'd better not monkey with the Flying U either.I'd pump him so full uh holes he'd look like a colander, by golly!"
Weary got up and started to the door, his face suddenly grown careworn."Slim, you and Miguel better go and hunt up Andy's horse," he said witha hint of abstraction in his tone, as though his mind was busy with moreimportant things. "Maybe Andy'll feel able to help you set those posts,Bud--and you'd better go along the upper end of the little pasture withthe wire stretchers and tighten her up; the top wire is pretty loose, Inoticed this morning." His fingers fumbled with the door-knob.
"Want me to do anything?" Pink asked quizzically just behind him. "Ithought sure we'd go and remonstrate with then gay--"
Weary interrupted him. "The herders can wait--and, anyway, I've kindagot an idea Andy wants to hand out his own brand of poison to thatbunch. You and I will take a ride over to Denson's and see what's goingon over there. Mamma!" he added fervently, under his breath, "I sure dowish Chip and the Old Man were here!"