CHAPTER XVII
OLD HECK GOES TO TOWN
It was Monday morning, clear and cloudless, with a whiff of a breezekissing the poplars along the front-yard fence at the Quarter Circle KT.On the sand-hills north of the Cimarron, Pedro was pushing the saddlecavallard toward Rock Creek, where the last half of the beef round-upwas to begin. Parker and the cowboys were just splashing their bronchosinto the water at the lower ford. Sing Pete, on the high seat of thegrub-wagon, was once more clucking and cawing at Old Tom and Baldy asthey drew the outfit along the lane and followed the others to the openrange.
Old Heck, Skinny, Ophelia and Carolyn June again were alone at theQuarter Circle KT.
The Eagle Butte Rodeo had closed, with one last riotous carnival ofwildness at midnight Saturday night.
Once more the straggling town, its pulse gradually beating back tonormal, lay half-asleep at the foot of the sun-baked butte that stoodsilent and drowsy beyond the Sante Fe tracks.
Tom Poole, the lank marshal, loafed as usual about the Elite AmusementParlor, over which hung a sullen quiet reflecting the morbid emotions ofMike Sabota, its brutish-built proprietor, resulting from his heavylosses on Thunderbolt in the two-mile sweepstakes when the Gold Dustmaverick, ridden by the drug-crazed Ramblin' Kid, darted under the wirelengths ahead of the black Vermejo stallion.
Friday evening Old Heck had met Dorsey in the pool-room.
Judge Ivory handed over to the owner of the Quarter Circle KT the Y-Barcattleman's check for ten thousand dollars and the bill of sale he hadrecklessly given and which transferred to Old Heck all the cattle theVermejo rancher owned.
Dorsey was game.
"You put it on me," he said to Old Heck "but the Ramblin' Kid won squareand I'm not squealing!"
Old Heck turned the check slowly over in his hand and looked at it witha quizzical frown on his face:
"I reckon this is good?"
"It's my exact balance," Dorsey replied; "I saw to that this morning."
For a long minute Old Heck studied the bill of sale that made him ownerof every cow-brute burnt with the Y-Bar brand.
"My men will gather the cattle within fifteen days," Dorsey said dully,noting the half-questioning look on Old Heck's face, "or you can sendyour own crew, just as you please. I suppose you'll meet me half-way andreceive the stock in Eagle Butte?"
"Can Thunderbolt run?" Old Heck asked irrelevantly.
"Not as fast as that imp of hell of the Ramblin' Kid's!" Dorsey answeredinstantly and with a short laugh.
Old Heck chuckled.
"You say you'll turn the Y-Bar cattle over to me within fifteen days?"he asked again, reverting to a study of the paper he held in his hand.
"Yes," Dorsey replied; "is that satisfactory?"
"You're a pretty good sport, after all, Dorsey," Old Heck said quietly."I'll cash this check"--glancing at the yellow slip of paper--"and thisthing, here--we'll just tear it up!" as he reduced the bill of sale tofragments. "Keep your cattle, Dorsey," he added, "ten thousand dollarsis enough for you to pay for your lesson!"
Dorsey flushed a dull red.
"I ain't asking--"
"I know you're not," Old Heck interrupted, "and that's the reason I toreup that bill of sale!"
"Old Heck," Dorsey said, his voice trembling, "you're white! I'd like toshake--"
The rival cattlemen gripped hands and the racing feud between theQuarter Circle KT and the Y-Bar was ended.
A week later Dorsey sent Flip Williams to the Quarter Circle KT. TheVermejo cowboy led the beautiful black stallion that had masteredQuicksilver and had in turn been whipped by the Gold Dust maverick.
"Dorsey said, Tell Old Heck Thunderbolt's a pretty good saddle horse,'"Flip explained, "'and he'd do to change off with Quicksilver once in awhile! So he sent him over as a sort of keepsake!'"
The Ramblin' Kid did not return to the Quarter Circle KT until lateSunday night. After the two-mile sweepstakes he was horribly ill. AllFriday night he laid, in a semi-conscious condition, in the stall withCaptain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick.
Parker and some of the cowboys visited the stall after the race, butthey thought the Ramblin' Kid was drunk and the best thing was to allowhim to sleep it off.
"I can't figure it out," Chuck said as they turned away, "he never didget drunk before that I knew of--"
"You can't tell what he's liable to do," Charley interrupted, "he suretook an awful chance getting on a tear at the time he did!"
"Well, he won the race," Parker said admiringly, "drunk or sober, you'vegot to give him credit for that!"
Saturday the Ramblin' Kid got Pedro to stay with the horses while hewent over to the Elite Amusement Parlor. He had nothing to say to Sabotaor any of the loafers in the place.
He was looking for Gyp Streetor.
Until Sunday afternoon he searched Eagle Butte, trying to find the tout.All he wanted was to locate the man who had sold him that cup ofcoffee--he could remember drinking the coffee; after that until thefollowing morning all was hazy.
But Gyp was gone.
When the Gold Dust maverick, with the Ramblin' Kid swaying uncertainlyon her back, had appeared on the track for the two-mile run, the tout,his eyes like those of a harried rat, sneaked out of the crowd in frontof the book-makers' booths and hurried toward the Santa Fe railroadyards. An hour later he slipped into an empty freight car--part of atrain headed for the West--and Eagle Butte saw him no more.
It was midnight Sunday when the Ramblin' Kid reached the Quarter CircleKT, turned Captain Jack and the outlaw filly into the circular corral,and without disturbing Old Heck, Parker, or the cowboys, already asleepin the bunk-house, sought his bed.
Monday morning he was at breakfast with the others.
Throughout the meal the Ramblin' Kid was silent. Carolyn June, stillshocked by what she thought was his intoxication the day of the race,and believing he had remained in Eagle Butte over Saturday night andSunday to continue the debauch, ignored him.
None of the others cared to question him and the Ramblin' Kid himselfvolunteered no information.
Once only, Old Heck mentioned the race.
"That was a pretty good ride you made in the two-mile event," he said,addressing the Ramblin' Kid; "it looked at first like the filly--"
"You won your money, didn't you?" the Ramblin' Kid interrupted in a tonethat plainly meant there was nothing further to be said.
That was the only reference to the incidents of Friday afternoon.
After breakfast the Ramblin' Kid saddled the Gold Dust maverick, turnedCaptain Jack with the cavallard, and with Parker and the other QuarterCircle KT cowboys rode away to help gather the beef cattle from the westhalf of the Cimarron range.
The week that followed passed quickly.
During the entire period the Kiowa lay under a mantle of sunshine by dayand starlit skies by night.
Carolyn June once more provided the evening dessert of coffee-jelly andSkinny finished teaching her the art of dipping bread in milk and eggbatter, frying it in hot butter, and calling the result "French toast"
Skinny again put on the white shirt and the shamrock tinted tie. He hadnot dared to wear what Chuck called his "love-making rigging" during theweek of the Rodeo. It would have made him entirely too conspicuous amongthe hundreds of other cowboys gathered at Eagle Butte for the bigcelebration. Situations filled with embarrassment would have been almostcertain to develop.
"It's getting so it needs a washing a little," Skinny remarked toCarolyn June the first time he reappeared in the once snowy garment.
He was quite right.
Carolyn June herself had noticed that the shirt had lost some of itsimmaculateness.
"It doesn't look hardly as white as it did at first!"
"No, it don't," Skinny answered seriously. "I guess I'll wash itto-morrow. I never did wash one but I reckon it ain't so awful hard todo--"
"I'll help you," Carolyn June volunteered. "I've never washed oneeither, but it will be fun to learn how!"
The next day they washed the shirt.
The ceremony was performed in the kitchen after they had finished doingthe breakfast dishes. Ophelia, after water for a vase of roses, cameinto the room while Skinny was rinsing the shirt in the large tindishpan.
The garment was a sickly yellow.
"Darned if I know what's wrong with it," Skinny said, a triflediscouraged, while Carolyn June, her sleeves rolled above dimpledelbows, stood by and watched the slushy operation. "Carolyn June and meboth have blamed near rubbed our fingers off trying to get it to lookright again but somehow or other it don't seem to work."
"Did you put bluing in your rinse water?" Ophelia asked with a laugh.
"Bluing?" Carolyn June and Skinny questioned together. "What does thatdo to it?"
"Bleaches it--makes it white," the widow replied with another laugh asshe returned to the front room.
"By golly, maybe that's what it needs!" Skinny exclaimed hopefully.
"Of course," Carolyn June cried gaily. "How silly we were not to thinkof it! Any one ought to know you put bluing in the water when you washthings. Wonder if Sing Pete has any around anywhere?"
They searched the kitchen shelves and found a pint bottle, nearly full,of the liquid indigo compound.
"How much do you suppose we ought to put in?" Carolyn June asked,pulling the cork from the bottle and holding it poised over the pan ofwater in which the shirt, a slimy, dingy mass, floated drunkenly.
"Darned if I know," Skinny said, scratching his head. "She said it wouldmake it white--I reckon the more you put in the whiter the blamedthing'll be. Try about half of it at first and see how 'it works!"
"Gee, isn't it pretty?" Carolyn June gurgled as she tipped the bottleand the waves of indigo spread through the water, covering the shirtwith a deep crystalline blue.
"You bet!" Skinny exclaimed. "That ought to fix it!"
It did.
The shirt, when finally dried, was a wonderful thing--done in a sort ofmottled, streaky, marbled sky and cloud effect.
But Skinny wore it, declaring he liked it better--that it more nearlymatched the shamrock tie--than when it was "too darned white andeverything!"
To Parker and the boys on the beef hunt everything was business.
The days were filled with hard riding as they gathered the cattle,bunched the fat animals, cut out and turned back those unfit for themarket, stood guard at night over the herd, steadily and rapidly cleanedthe west half of the Kiowa range of the stuff that was ready to sell.
It was supper-time on one of the last days of the round-up.
The outfit was camped at Dry Buck. Bed rolls, wrapped in dingy graytarpaulins or black rubber ponchos, were scattered about marking theplaces where each cowboy that night would sleep. The herd was bunched aquarter of a mile away in a little cove backed by the rim of sand-hills.Captain Jack and Silver Tip, riderless but with their saddles still on,were nipping the grass near the camp--the Ramblin' Kid and Chuck were totake the first watch, until midnight, at "guard mount." Parker and thecowboys were squatted, legs doubled under them, their knees forming atable on which to hold the white porcelain plate of "mulligan," in acircle at the back of the grub-wagon. Sing Pete trotted around the groupand poured black, blistering-hot coffee into the unbreakable cups on theground at the side of the hungry, dusty riders.
The sun had just dipped into the ragged peaks of the Costejo range and areddish-purple crown lay on the crest of Sentinel Mountain forty milesto the southeast.
"It looks to me like Parker's sort of losing out," Chuck suddenlyremarked, as he wiped his lips on the back of his hand after washingdown a mouthful of the savory stew with gulps of steaming coffee."Ophelia stuck closer than thunder to Old Heck all through the Rodeo."
Parker reddened and growled: "Aw, hell--don't start that up again!"
"By criminy, she didn't stick any closer to Old Heck than Skinny stuckto Carolyn June," Bert complained. "Nobody else had a look-in!"
"Skinny's sure earning his money," Charley muttered half enviously.
"Bet he's got on that white shirt and having a high old time right now!They're probably in the front room and she's playing _La Paloma_ on thepiano while Old Skinny's setting back rolling his eyes up like a bloatedyearling!" Chuck laughed.
"And Old Heck and Ophelia are out on the porch holding hands and lookingaffectionate while the mosquitos are chewing their necks and ankles!"Bert added with a snicker.
"Her and Old Heck'll probably be married before we get back," Chuck saidsolemnly, with a wink at the Ramblin' Kid and a sly glance in thedirection of Parker.
"Do you reckon there's any danger of it?" Parker asked in a voice thatshowed anxiety, but not of the sort the cowboys thought.
"They're darned near sure to," Chuck replied seriously, heaving what hetried to make resemble a sigh of sympathy.
"What makes you think so?" Parker questioned, seeking confirmation fromthe lips of other, of a hope that had been rising in his heart since thefirst moment he had begun to regret his rash proposal of marriage to thewidow.
"Well, for one thing"--Chuck began soberly--"the way they'd look at eachother--"
"I saw her squeeze Old Heck's arm once!" Bert interrupted.
"Aw, she's done that lots of times," Chuck said airily; "that ain'tnothing special! But the worst indication was them flowers she wore onher bosom every day--_Old Heck bought 'em_!" he finished dramatically,leaning over and speaking tensely as though it pained him immeasurablyto break the news to Parker while he fixed on Old Heck's rival a look heimagined was one of supreme pity.
"Yeah, he had them sent up from Las Vegas," Bert added, picking up thecue and lying glibly. "I saw the express agent deliver a box of them tohim one day. There was four dollars and eighty cents charges on 'em!"
A gleam, which the cowboys misunderstood, came into Parker's eyes.
"Why don't you and Old Heck fight a duel about Ophelia?" Bert suggestedtragically and in a voice that was aimed to convey sympathy to theQuarter Circle KT foreman. "You could probably kill him!"
"Sure, that's the way they do in books," Chuck urged.
"Yes," the Ramblin' Kid broke in with a slow drawl, "fight one withsour-dough biscuits at a hundred yards! That'd be sensible--then both ofyou'd be genuine heroes!"
"Gosh, th' Ramblin' Kid's awake!" Bert laughed. "How does it happen youain't fell in love with Carolyn June?" he asked, turning toward theslender, dark-eyed, young cowboy. "So far you're the only one that'sescaped. The rest of us are breaking our hearts--"
For an instant the Ramblin' Kid flashed on Bert a look of hot angerwhile a dull red glow spread over his sun-tanned cheeks.
"There's enough damned fools loose on th' Kiowa range without me bein'one, too!" he retorted slowly, getting up and going toward Captain Jack.
"Blamed if he'll stand a bit of joshing on that subject!" Bertmuttered, his own face flushing from the look the Ramblin' Kid hadgiven him.
"Not a darned bit," Chuck added, "but it is funny; the way he shys offfrom Carolyn June!"
"Th' Ramblin' Kid ain't interested in women," Charley said, as theypitched their plates to one side and the meal was finished. "He ain'tthe kind that bothers with females!"
When Chuck had idly suggested that Old Heck and Ophelia might be marriedbefore Parker and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys returned to the ranchfrom the beef hunt, he did not know it, but the words he spoke in jestvoiced the very thought at the same instant in the mind of OldHeck--miles away though he was. Perhaps it was mental telepathy, thoughtvibration, subconscious soul communication--or a mere coincident, thatcaused Chuck, far out on the open range, to speak the thing Old Heck,sitting at supper with Carolyn June, Ophelia and Skinny, at the QuarterCircle KT was thinking.
Ever since Parker had voluntarily surrendered during the Rodeo, hisright to alternate, day and day about, with Old Heck in the widow'ssociety, the owner of the Quarter Circle KT had been watching Ophelia,covertly and carefully, for any sign of "Movements" or an outbreak as adreaded suffragette.
Wh
ile he watched her the widow was becoming more and more a necessity inthe life of Old Heck.
The night of the conversation between Parker and the cowboys, away overat Rock Creek, Old Heck sat at the supper table in the kitchen at theranch and debated in his mind the future relationships of Parker,Ophelia and himself. In a few days Parker would return. Almost certainlythe foreman would again wish to share, fifty-fifty, in the courtship ofthe widow. Old Heck felt that if such were so those odd days, whenParker was with Ophelia, would be little less than hell. Yet, he dreadedthat suffragette business. If she would only break loose and let him seehow bad she was liable to be he could easily make up his mind. He wasalmost ready to take a chance, to ask Ophelia to marry him and settle itall at once.
Throughout the meal he was moody. After supper he had little to say andthe next few days he brooded constantly over the matter.
Tuesday Parker and the cowboys were expected to return with the beefcattle. Monday morning, at breakfast, the widow asked Old Heck if hewould take her to Eagle Butte that day.
"I must see the minister's wife," she said, as Old Heck steered theClagstone "Six" up the grade that led out to the bench and to EagleButte, "--it is very important"
Old Heck murmured assent and drove silently on. Probably she was goingto start a "Movement" or something to-day! To-morrow, Parker would beback. It sure did put a man in a dickens of a fix!
Before they reached the long bridge across the Cimarron a mile fromEagle Butte Old Heck's mind was made up.
"You want to stop at the preacher's house?" he asked.
"If you please," Ophelia replied, "for some little time. There arethings to discuss--"
"Would you mind if I drove around to the court-house first?" Old Heckquestioned again.
"Not at all," she answered sweetly.
A few moments later Old Heck stopped the Clagstone "Six" in front of theyellow sandstone county building. Leaving Ophelia in the car with theremark, "I'll be out in a minute!" he went inside and hurried along thedark corridor that led to the clerk's office.
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