CHAPTER V
WA-HA-LOTE
The cowboy's day begins early, no matter how he spends his night. It wasfour o'clock in the morning and Bowles was dead with sleep when suddenlythe light of a lantern was thrown in his eyes and he heard the cook'svoice rousing up the horse wranglers.
"Wranglers!" he rasped, shaking Brigham by the shoulder. "Git up, Brig;it's almost day!"
"All right, Gus!" answered Brigham, cuddling down for another nap; butGloomy Gus had awakened too many generations of cowboys to be deceivedby a play like that, and on his way out to finish breakfast he stumbledover Brigham's boots and woke him up to give them to him. So, with manya yawn and sigh, poor Brigham and his fellow wrangler stamped on theirboots and went out to round up the horse pasture, and shortly afterwarda shrill yell from the cook gave notice that breakfast was ready. Fiveminutes later he yelled again and beat harshly on a dishpan; then, asthe rumble of the horse herd was heard, he came and kicked open thedoor.
"Hey, git up, boys!" he shouted. "Breakfast's waitin' and the remuda isin the c'rell! The old man will be down hollerin' 'Hawses!' before yougit yore coffee!"
The bite of the cold morning air swept in as he stood there and rousedthem at last to action. Swiftly Buck and Bill and Happy Jack rolled outand hustled into their clothes; other men not yet known by name hurriedforth to wash for breakfast; and at last Bowles stepped out, to find thesky full of stars. A cold wind breathed in from the east, where thedeceitful radiance of the false dawn set a halo on the distant ridges;and the cowboy's life, for the moment, seemed to offer very little to anerrant lover. Around the cook's fire, with their coat collars turned upto their ears, a group of punchers was hovering in a half-circle,leaving the other half for Gloomy Gus. Their teeth chattered in thefrosty silence, and one by one they washed their faces in hot water fromthe cook's can and waited for the signal to eat. Then the wranglers camein, half frozen from their long ride in the open pasture, and as Brighampoured out a cup of coffee, regardless, old Gus raised the lid from aDutch oven, glanced in at the nicely browned biscuits and hollered:
"Fly at it!"
A general scramble for plates and cups followed; then a raid on theovens and coffee-pots and kettles; and inside of three minutes twentymen were crouching on the ground, each one supplied with beans, biscuitsand beef--the finest the range produced. They ate and came back formore, and Bowles tried to follow their example; but breakfast at homehad been served at a later hour, and it had not been served on theground, either. However, he ate what he could and drank a pint of coffeethat made him as brave as a lion. It was real range coffee, that had seton the grounds over night and been boiled for an hour in the morning. Itwas strong, and made him forget the cold; but just as he was beginningto feel like a man again silence fell on the crowd, and Henry Leeappeared.
In his riding boots, and with a wooden-handled old Colt's in his shaps,Mr. Lee was a different creature from the little man that Bowles hadwhipsawed on the previous evening. He was a dominating man, and as hestood by the fire for a minute and waited for enough light to rope by,Mr. Bowles began to have his regrets. It is one thing to bully-rag a manon his front steps, and quite another to ride bronks on a cold morning.The memory of a man named Dunbar came over him, and he wondered if hehad died in the morning, when his bones were brittle and cold. Heremembered other things, including Dixie Lee, but without any positiveinspiration; and he took a sneaking pleasure at last in the fact thatMr. Lee appeared to have forgotten all about him.
But Henry Lee was not the man to let an Eastern tenderfoot run it overhim, and just as he called for horses and started over toward the corralhe said to Hardy Atkins:
"Oh, Hardy, catch up that Dunbar horse and put this gentleman's saddleon him, will you?"
He waved his hand toward Bowles, whose heart had just missed a beat, andpulled on a trim little glove.
"What--Dunbar?" gasped the bronco-twister, startled out of his calm.
"Yes," returned Lee quietly. "The gentleman claims he can ride."
"Who--him?" demanded Atkins, pointing incredulously at the willowyBowles.
"Yes--him!" answered the cattleman firmly. "And after what he said to melast evening he's either got to ride Dunbar or own himself acoward--that's all."
"Oh," responded the twister, relieved by the alternative; and with awink at Buck and the rest of the crowd he went rollicking out to thecorral. By the usual sort of telepathy Hardy Atkins had come to hate anddespise Bowles quite as heartily as Bowles had learned to hate him, andthe prospect of putting the Easterner up against Dunbar made his feetbounce off the ground. First he roped out his own mount and saddled himby the gate; then, as the slower men caught their horses and preparedfor the work of the day, he leaned against the bars and pointed out theman-killer to Bowles, meanwhile edging in his little talk.
"See that brown over there?" he queried, as Bowles stared breathlesslyout over the sea of tossing heads. "No, here he is now--that wall-eyeddevil with his hip knocked down--he got that when he rared over andkilled Dunbar. Can't you see 'im? Right over that bald-faced sorrel!Yes, that hawse that limps behind!"
At that moment some impetuous cowboy roped at his mount and the roundcorral became a raging maelstrom of rushing horses, thundering about ina circle and throwing the dirt twenty feet high; but as a countermovement checked the charge and the wind blew the dust away, the lankyform of the horse that killed Dunbar loomed up on the edge of the herd.He was a big, raw-boned brute, colored a sunburned, dusty brown, and alimp in his off hind leg gave him a slinking, stealthy air; but whatimpressed Bowles the most was the sinister look in his eyes. If ever ahorse was a congenital criminal, Dunbar was the animal. His head waslong and bony and bulging around the ears, and his eyes were sunk deep,like a rattlesnake's, and with a rattlesnake's baleful glare. But therewas more than a snaky wildness in them: the wicked creature seemed to bemeditating upon his awful past, and scheming greater crimes, until hishaggard, watchful eyes were set in a fixed, brooding stare. He was a badhorse, old Dunbar, and Atkins was there to play him up.
"You want to be careful not to hurt that hawse," he warned, as Bowlescaught his breath and started. "The boss expects to git a thousanddollars fer him at the Cheyenne Rough-Riding Contest next summer. Nowthat old Steamboat is rode, and Teddy Roosevelt is busted, they's bigmoney hangin' up fer a bad hawse. Got to have one, you know. It's ferthe championship of the world, and if they don't git another man-killerthey can't have no contest. I would've tried him myself, but he's toovaluable. How do you ride--with yore stirrups tied? No? Well, I reckonyou're right--likely to get caught and killed if he throws himself overback. You ain't down here fer a Wild West Show, are ye? Uh-huh, jestthought you might be--knowed you wasn't a puncher. Well, we'll saddlehim up fer you now--if you say so!"
He lingered significantly on the last words, and Henry Lee, who wasstanding near, half smiled; but there must have been some sporting bloodback in the Bowles family somewhere, for Mr. Bowles merely murmured:
"If you will, please!" and got his saddle.
So there was nothing for Atkins to do but go in and try to catch Dunbar.The bronco-twister shook out his rope, glanced at the boss, glanced athim again, and dropped reluctantly into the corral. Hardy Atkins wouldrather have taken a whipping than put a saddle on Dunbar; but he was upagainst it now, so he lashed his loop out on the ground and advanced tomake his throw. One by one the horses that had gathered about Dunbar ranoff to the right or left, and as the old man-killer made his dash toescape the long rope shot out with a lightning swiftness and settledaround his neck. The twister passed the rope behind him, sat back on itand dug his high heels into the ground; but the jerk was too much forhis hand-grip, and before anyone could tail on behind he let go andturned the horse loose.
Then, as the great whirlpool of frightened horses went charging aroundthe corral, Buck Buchanan, the man with the bull-moose voice, hoppeddown and rushed to the center. Some one threw an extra rope to HardyAtkins, and once more they closed in on the outlaw. But the hor
se thatkilled Dunbar was better than the two of them, and soon he had a secondrope to trail. A third and a fourth man leaped in to join the conflict;and as they roped and ran and fought with Dunbar the remuda went crazywith excitement and threatened to break down the fence.
"Put up them bars!" yelled Hardy Atkins, as a beautiful, dappled blackmade a balk to leap over the gate. "Now all on this rope, boys--snub himto that post--oh, hell!" The pistol-like report of a grass rope partingfilled out the rest of the sentence. Then the bronco-twister camelimping over to the gate where Bowles and Henry Lee were sitting,shaking the blood from a freshly barked knuckle.
"We can't hold the blinkety-blank," he announced, gazing defiantly atthe boss. "And what's the use, anyhow?" he demanded, petulantly. "Theyain't a bronk in the remuda that can't throw this Englishman a mile! Ofcourse, if you want us to take a day to it----"
"Well, catch Wa-ha-lote, then!" snapped Mr. Lee. "And be quick about it!I've got something else to do, Mr. Bowles," he observed tartly, "besidessaddle up man-killers for a man that can't sit a trotting-horse!"
This was evidently an allusion to Mr. Bowles' way of putting the Englishon a jog-trot; but Bowles was too much interested to resent it. He waswatching Hardy Atkins advancing on the dappled black that had tried tojump the bars.
"Oh," he cried enthusiastically, "is that the horse you mean? Oh, isn'the a beautiful creature! It's so kind of you to make the change!"
"Ye-es!" drawled Mr. Lee; and all the cowboys smiled. Next to Dunbar,Wa-ha-lote was the champion scrapper of the Bat Wing. There had been aday when he was gentle, but ever since a drunken Texas cowboy had riddenhim with the spurs his views of life had changed. He had decided that nodecent, self-respecting horse would stand for such treatment and, afterpiling a few adventurous bronco-busters, had settled down to a life ofease and plenty. The finest looking horse in the remuda, by all odds,was old Wa-ha-lote, the Water-dog. He was fat and shiny, and carried histail straight up, like a banner; the yellow dapples, like the spots on asalamander's black hide--whence his Mexican name, Wa-ha-lote--werebright and plain in the sunlight; and he held his head up high as heramped around the corral.
The sun had come up over the San Ramon Mountains while Hardy Atkins waswrestling with Dunbar; it soared still higher while the boys caughtWa-ha-lote. But caught he was, and saddled, for the horse never livedthat a bunch of Texas punchers cannot tie. It was hot work, with skinnedknuckles and rope-burned hands to pay for it; but the hour of revengewas at hand, and they called for Bowles. A wild look was in every eye,and heaven only knows what would have happened had he refused; but thehot sun and the excitement had aroused Mr. Bowles from his calm, and heanswered like a bridegroom. Perhaps a flash of white up by the big houseadded impetus to his feet; but, be that as it may, he slipped blithelythrough the bars and hurried out to his mount.
"Oh, what a beautiful horse!" he cried, standing back to admire hislines. "Do you need that blinder on his eyes?"
"What I say!" commented Atkins, ambiguously. "Now you pile on him andtake this quirt, and when I push the blind up you holler and throw itinto 'im. Are you ready?"
"Just a moment!" murmured Bowles, and for the space of half a minute hestood patting old Water-dog's neck where he stood there, grim andwaiting, his iron legs set like posts and every muscle aquiver. Then,with unexpected quickness, he swung lightly into the saddle and settledhimself in the stirrups.
"All right," he said. "Release him!"
"Release him it is!" shouted Atkins, with brutal exulting. "Let 'im go,boys; and--_yee-pah_!"
He raised the blind with a single jerk, leaped back, and warpedWa-ha-lote over the rump with a coil of rope. Other men did as much, ormore; and Bowles did not forget to holler.
"Get up, old fellow!" he shouted.
As the lashes fell, Wa-ha-lote made one mighty plunge--and stopped.Then, as the crowd scattered, he shook out his mane and charged straightat the high, pole gate. A shout went up, and a cry of warning, and asthe cowboys who draped the bars scrambled down to escape the crashBowles was seen to lean forward; he struck with his quirt, andWa-ha-lote vaulted the bars like a hunter. But even then he was notsatisfied. Two panel gates stood between him and the open, and he tookthem both like a bird; then the dust rose up in his wake and the BatWing outfit stood goggle-eyed and blasphemous.
"W'y, the blankety-blank!" crooned Hardy Atkins.
"Too skeered to pitch!" lamented Buck.
"You hit 'im too hard!" shouted Happy Jack.
"But that feller kin ride!" put in Brigham stoutly.
"Aw, listen to the Mormon-faced dastard!" raved Hardy Atkins; and as theconversation rose mountain high, the white dresses up on the hillfluttered back inside the house. But when Bowles came riding back onWa-ha-lote not even the outraged Hardy could deny that the Bat Wing hada new hand.
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