Injun and Whitey to the Rescue

by William S. Hart

  CHAPTER XIX

  THRESHING-TIME

  Injun was a being who ran more to feelings, or instincts, than toreasons, and like many persons of that kind his instincts often rantruer to form than the reasons of others. While Dorgan was not a likableman, he was not one whom everybody would distrust; he did not have theword "villain" printed on his face. Yet Injun thought he was one, and ifasked for his reasons probably could not have told them.

  You know that Injun suspected Dorgan of taking Whitey's pony, and nowWhitey learned for the first time that Injun had seen Dorgan stealingaway from the sheep ranch on the night of the war. Whitey wondered whyInjun had not told him this before, but it was not Injun's way to telleverything he knew, even to Whitey. That was one of Injun's charms.

  No one ever had suspected Dorgan of being a sheepman. He might have beenat that ranch as a mere visitor. Injun thought he went there on foot,after Monty had been taken away from him. It is well known that in theOld West horse-stealing was considered about the worst crime a man couldcommit, not only because of the value of the horse, and a man's being sodependent on it, but because the horse helped to steal itself, as allone had to do was to get on it and ride away. It never would do toaccuse Dorgan of the crime without pretty good proof.

  Of course, it made Whitey wild to think of any one's stealing Monty, andas he and Injun stood in a corner of the barn, and talked the matterover, they decided on the following course: they would stay at theHanley Ranch for a while; Dorgan had not seen them. If he ran away whenhe did see them, that would be an indication of guilt, but no proof. Butif Dorgan stayed on, the boys might be able to get some proof of hisguilt. He was a dangerous man to deal with; that made it all the moreinteresting. If they had known how dangerous Dorgan really was, theymight have considered the matter more seriously.

  The next morning the Mildini Troupe went on its way across the lonelyprairie, and Whitey watched the departure with regret. He would haveliked to travel farther with that troupe.

  The owner of the Hanley Ranch seldom came there. He lived in the East,leaving the affairs of the place entirely in the hands of a managernamed Gilbert Steele. It was a common saying in that part of the countrythat "Gil Steele was as hard as his name." He was an ambitious and anactive man, and regarded every dollar wrung out of the ranch for itsowner as a sort of triumph for himself.

  There are men who are successful only when working for others; whoseevery independent effort is a failure. Steele was such a man, and thatmade him bitter, but none the less energetic. He acted not only asmanager, but as foreman of the ranch, which included two sections,twelve hundred and eighty acres. And he had many enemies.

  Perhaps you have wondered at that queer audience in the barn, and whythreshing-time should bring it together. In those days in the Westthreshing-time was an era of prosperity, and twenty-five or thirty menwould band together and buy a threshing-machine. They owned plenty ofhorses, and they would go from ranch to ranch with this machine, andthresh the grain. Now, this threshing-time being of short duration, itdrew into it men whose occupations were entirely different at othertimes of the year. Hence, the bartenders, hold-up men, cowpunchers--whomit would be fatal to ask where they came from--the blacksmiths, and thestore-keepers.

  Gil Steele had been at the Bar O, so Whitey was known to him, and hesupposed that the boy had come merely to see the show. So Gil was rathersurprised, the next morning, when Whitey asked for a job for himself andfor Injun.

  "What do you want to work for?" Steele demanded. "Your father's gotplenty o' money."

  Whitey's real reason was that he wanted to be among the men to watchDorgan, but he equivocated--which is a pretty way of saying that he tolda white lie.

  "Bill Jordan thinks I'm a softy," Whitey replied. "He's trying to makeit so hard for me that I'll be glad to go back to school. And I want toshow Bill that I'm not afraid of work." You see, there was enough truthin this to keep Whitey's conscience from aching.

  "All right," said Steele. "More hands mean quicker work and more money.But I never heard of an Injun wanting to work before."

  "Tame Injun," Injun said solemnly, which was as near a joke as he evercame in the years Whitey knew him.

  This work came under the head of what a fellow doesn't really have todo, and everybody knows the difference between that and labor that afellow does have to do--about the same difference that there is betweenwork and fun. The threshing-machine was run by horse power. You rememberFelix, the jack that Whitey rode across the prairie, and Felix's job ofturning the little grinding-mill? The horses had the same sort of job,except that there were teams of them, revolving around a central pivot,that furnished the power that worked the great machine in whose mawsheaves of wheat were fed, to come out as grain.

  Injun and Whitey's jobs were to hold the sacks into which the grainfell. And there they worked, from sunup to sundown, in the heat, and thedust from the chaff, with never a murmur. They were happy because it_wasn't_ work, it was an adventure, with expectancy and danger in it.And Gil Steele was happy, because he was practically getting the work oftwo men for the pay of two boys.

  The sleeping quarters in the Hanley Ranch were altogether taken up bythe extra help required to feed the threshers. So the threshersthemselves occupied tents, and it was in one of these that Whitey andInjun were bedded, much to their joy. It fitted in with their plans towatch Dorgan, and see if they could learn something that would confirmtheir suspicions of him.

  So far Dorgan had been an utter disappointment. Not only had herefrained from beating it, but he had greeted the boys pleasantly whenthey met. As far as outward appearances went, Dorgan might have been aSunday school superintendent. Had he been one at heart, there would beno more story for me to tell.

  But there were times when Dorgan could be forgotten. With a crowd likethat gathered on the Hanley Ranch, you can imagine the yarns there wereto spin in the long evenings, with nothing to do but spin them. Perhapssome of the tales those men didn't dare to tell--the secrets hiddenbehind their hardened faces, the faults, the crimes, the horrors thatcould have been revealed--these might have proved more thrilling thanthe stories that came forth; but that is something that neither you, norWhitey, nor I will ever know.

  The tales that were told there had the proper setting, and if you havethought much about stories you know what that means. You tell a ghoststory late at night, seated before a fireplace in an old country house.The only light comes from the flames of the dying fire logs that flickeras the wind howls down the chimney; the only sounds, the beating of therain on the walls and roof, and--during the creepy pauses in theyarn--the creakings that a lonely house gives out in the night hours.Tell that same story on a sun-lighted June morning, in the orchard,when the trees are all in blossom. Oh, boy! you know the difference.

  One night when Whitey had been to the ranch house on an errand, hereturned to the tent to find a disturbance going on. Dorgan, who sleptin another tent, was a visitor. Somewhere he had obtained liquor; underits influence his pleasant manner had fled, and he was picking on Injun.The dislike that Dorgan concealed during his sober moments had reachedthe point at which he demanded that Injun be put out of the tent. It wasa place for white men, not for Injuns. Injun was not afraid of Dorgan,and had no idea of leaving, so Dorgan was going to put him out. Injunwasn't going to let Dorgan put him out.

  At this moment Whitey arrived. What would have happened to an unarmedboy against a drunken, armed man or to two unarmed boys, for Whiteystarted to interfere, is something else we never shall know, for acowboy put in his oar.

  You know that a cowboy remains a "boy" until he is old enough to die.This one was sixty, he wasn't a typical puncher at all. He had a thin,hawk-like face, steady gray eyes, rather long hair which also was graylike his moustache and goatee. He had been a soldier and an Indianfighter, and he looked it. As Dorgan lurched toward the boys, who stoodtense, with flashing eyes, and prepared for resistance, this cowboystepped between, and spoke to Dorgan.

  "I wouldn't do that if I
was you," he said, and he spoke in a sort ofdrawl, but there didn't seem to be any drawl in his cool, gray eyes. Inspite of his condition Dorgan appeared to realize this, for he pauseduncertainly. "I don't hold myself up as no defender o' Injuns," the oldpuncher went on calmly, "but I've had a bit o' truck with 'em, fer an'ag'inst, I'm some judge of 'em, an' I reck'n this one c'n stay righthere."

  Dorgan began to stiffen a little and his fingers clutched, as one's willwhen one thinks of reaching for a gun. The other man had a gun, too, buthe made not the slightest movement toward it, and he spoke even morequietly than before.

  "If I was you," he repeated, "bein' in th' c'ndition you're in, I'd beatit. You may have objections for t' state, thinkin' this ain't none o'my business, an' you c'n state 'em now--or f'rever hold your peace."

  Dorgan looked around the tent, as if for moral support, but didn't findany. A singular quiet had fallen on the place; a sort of disconcertingquiet. A warning ray of sense must have come into Dorgan's fuddled brainas he looked again at the old puncher, for without a word he stumbledout into the darkness.

  "That was mighty fine of you," Whitey said warmly, but the old mandidn't seem to hear him.

  He sat down and built a cigarette, and when it was lighted began todrawl between puffs. "There's a lot o' folks that don't know nothin''bout Injuns, that has a lot o' 'pinions concernin' 'em," he said. "Theysay you've got t' live with a feller t' know him, but that ain't so. Youc'n find out a lot by fightin' him. That's how I got my feelin' forInjuns, an' it's th' kind you have for a good fighter."

  The incident with Dorgan seemed to have passed from his mind, thoughWhitey had lived long enough in the West to know that tragedy hadlurked near. The old puncher leaned back, his hands behind his head, andpuffed clouds of smoke into the air. He looked at the smoke as though hesaw pictures in it. Then he carefully threw the cigarette down andground his heel into it. As the other men had remained silent while hewas talking to Dorgan, they remained silent now.

  He was a product of an epic time in the West, a time when the others hadbeen boys. Naturally a quiet man, he had had little to say. He also wasknown as a dangerous man, and when a quiet and dangerous man seemsinclined to talk, it is sometimes worth while to wait. Instead ofspeaking, he rolled another cigarette, and again looked into the smoke.

  But presently the old puncher awoke from his dream and looked at thesurrounding faces, some coarse, some wicked, but all attentive, allplainly inviting him to talk.

  "Yes, sir, a feller that was in th' Seventh Cavalry, in th' old days,got a good many lessons 'bout Injuns," he began. "An' if you like, I c'ntell you some things 'bout th' biggest Injun fight that ever happenedin these parts, 'cause I was there."

  So he told the story, and I shall leave out the questions with which itwas interrupted.