by Zane Grey
The road wound under a wooded slope and through clumps of pine, and along a swift, clear creek, the size of which, remembering Brooks’ assertion that it flowed from a single spring on his farm, astounded him greatly. At the same time Ernest could not but reflect that it certainly had been an oversight on the part of his Uncle Silas to give away the source of the main water supply to his ranch. Ernest thought it might be well to buy back this piece of land, or make some fair and square deal with Brooks for water rights.
He discovered but few cattle, considering the large acreage represented there, and concluded that the stock probably was ranging up and down beyond the hills. He saw not a single fence until he got well down toward the mouth of the valley. Then it became evident that the valley debouched into another of those vast, rolling parks for which this part of the country was famous. Probably that was the real cattle range.
All the cliffs and crags on the opposite side of the wide park stood out in striking shades and tints of red above the green of the range. In a rounded curve of the valley, almost an amphitheater, a wide bench jutted out, and here among scattered pine trees and gnarled old oaks stood the low, rambling ranch house, very picturesquely located, with an assortment of barns, sheds, corrals, and the like grouped farther back under the slope.
Ernest drew a deep, almost painful breath. All this could not possibly be his. But it was! And he had a flash of lively expectancy of the fun and adventure he was going to experience before he revealed himself as the real owner. What, he thought, would this outspoken western girl, this green-eyed Anne Hepford say if she knew? Looking at her as she sat before him, her face excitedly turned in the direction of the Red Rock ranch house, he wondered how this proud creature would react when she learned the truth.
“Whoa!” yelled the driver, and braked the stage to a halt at a corner of the road where a thick clump of pines obstructed the view of the valley in both directions.
A man suddenly appeared along the roadside. Instantly Ernest’s mind reverted to the conversation between the robbers which had intimated that a third member of their party named Bud would secure the money Miss Hepford carried, should they fail in their effort to get it. Selby sat up suddenly, and his hand went to his hip pocket. These rangeland ruffians certainly did not lack when it came to boldness. This man was younger than the other two, and he had a clean square-cut chin and dark face. He might be a ranchman or even a cowboy from his looks, Ernest thought, but he had hard, steady, flinty eyes that reminded him of the other cowboys he had seen that morning on the station square.
“What you want, haulin’ me up like this?” demanded the driver suspiciously.
“Ride to Springer. My hoss went lame,” was the calm reply.
“Whar is your hoss?”
“Tied back off the road,” rejoined the stranger, jerking his hand backward. “I’ll come back after him.”
“Wal, all right, git in,” replied the stage driver reluctantly.
The man leaped up onto the step with one graceful bound and at that moment Ernest felt himself subjected to the most penetrating gaze he had ever encountered. Something in it that the Iowan interpreted as an insolent appraisal of his status as a tenderfoot, inflamed him to the point of rage. Moreover it convinced him that the man who just had boarded the stage was the third robber. He coolly accepted the stranger’s challenging look. His eyes did not waver. Glad indeed was he that he had still two shells in his gun. Miss Hepford might see something presently that was not calculated to excite her suspicious vanity over the tricks of cowboys to win her favor.
Selby sat forward, nerved for swift action if it proved necessary, as the man stepped up as if to take the seat behind the women. But he did not sit down. Quick as a flash be bent over Miss Hepford and snatched her bag, which she held in her lap.
She screamed: “Let go of my bag! Help me, somebody!” She was frantically wrestling to regain her bag. But she was too late.
The Iowan leaped up with drawn gun and when the robber wheeled Ernest leveled it at him.
“Halt or I fire!” Selby cried hoarsely, and he had a hair-raising sense of his finger on the trigger. The man’s dark face changed, more from surprise and chagrin than fear.
“Up they are,” he sang out.
Ernest made no false move here. He knew what he was doing when with his left hand he jerked the bag from the thief.
“Turn round. . . . Now sit down. . . . Keep your hands high!”
These orders were obeyed. Then Selby directed the women to step across into the seat ahead of them.
“I might have to shoot this footpad,” he added, “and I don’t want to risk hurting anyone else.”
They lost no time in complying. Mrs. Jones nearly fainted and dropped her head against Miss Hepford’s shoulder. The redheaded girl turned a pale and wrathful face backward.
“Don’t kill—him!” she cried, but there was no compassion in her voice.
“If I have to, I’ll be careful not to spatter his brains all over you,” replied Ernest coolly. Then he pressed the gun barrel hard against the middle of the thief’s back.
“Well, so you’re Bill’s pard,” he muttered. “You may be interested to know that this gun went off of its own accord awhile back.”
Here the stage driver came out of his trance with a muttered curse. “Woods seem to be full of these cheap holdup hombres! Cowboy, you’re all there! Watch him like a hawk!”
“Drive on to the ranch,” ordered Ernest sharply.
In another moment the stage was on its way at a fast trot. As it turned off to the right, the horses came to a gentle slope, above which lay the pine-covered bench where the ranch house stood. In spite of Selby’s close attention to the bandit on the seat in front of him, he was conscious of the lovely scenery which they were passing. He could see that the stage was driving through a virgin, brown-carpeted, sweet-scented pine forest which extended up to the fine old ranch house. Then the driver, with a fine flourish, hauled the stage to a stop in a green square before the house. Dogs barked a welcome. A tall man, in shirt sleeves, with a dark, pointed beard and sharp eyes, walked down the broad steps. He wore leather top boots with spurs, and Ernest immediately took him to be John Hepford.
“What the hell?” the man on the ground called in a tone of surprise, staring at the inmates of the stage.
“Oh, Dad, I’ve been held up twice,” cried Miss Hepford.
“Held up? What are you talking about? Is this one of your highwaymen?” he asked, gesturing toward Ernest and his prisoner.
“Hepford, we shore hev been held up twice,” spoke up the driver wrathfully. “I took on two hombres at Holbrook. At Concha they’d a got thet bag of Miss Anne’s if it hedn’t been fer this here young cowboy. He fought them an’ drove them off. Then back hyar by the pines this galoot piles on an’ he did get the bag. But this gent hyar stopped him, as you see.”
“Steady there, cowboy,” said the rancher, coolly. “You’ve a fidgety finger, I see.”
“Yes I have,” replied Selby. “Here’s the bag these fellows wanted so badly.” And Ernest tossed it out to Hepford.
“I told you not to make me draw all that money,” burst out the girl, as she climbed out.
“You come too, Mrs. Jones. We’ll drive you to Springer later. I’ll send some of the boys with this thief to the sheriff’s office.”
By the time the frightened Mrs. Jones had been helped out of the stage, several young cowhands had come running up in answer to the rancher’s call.
“What’s doin’, boss?”
“Anne’s been held up. You boys take this hombre to Springer an’ turn him over to Sheriff Walker.”
The three cowpokes all boarded the stage at once and at different points.
“Been ridin’ him hard, cowboy?” said one. “Wal, you c’n climb off. We’ll do the rest.”
Ernest pocketed his gun and jumped down off the stage. Here the driver came to his rescue. “Much obliged, cowboy. This is whar you git off. I heahed what you
said to Sam Brooks. ... Don’t fergit your bags.”
The young Iowan suddenly became aware of the fact that he was being examined by a pair of hypnotic green eyes.
“I want to apologize, Mr. Gunman,” said Miss Hepford. “I thought it was a cowboy trick. ... I am Anne Hepford. This is my dad.”
“What’s your name?” queried the rancher.
“Ernest—Howard,” stammered Ernest.
“From where?”
“Iowa.”
“Did you follow my girl out heah?” he went on, his sharp, cold gaze fixed on Ernest
“No sir,” replied Selby stiffly. “I can’t say that I care for your insinuation. Just the same, it was mighty lucky for you I happened to be on the stage.”
“Shore.” The rancher’s voice lost its tone of suspicion. “I’m not overlooking that. Reckon you’re looking for a job.”
“Yes sir.”
“Wal, hunt up Hawk Siebert and see if he’ll take you on,” concluded the rancher, waving his hand.
“Mr. Ernest Howard,” added Anne sweetly, “you can tell Siebert that I said for him to give you a job.”
3
SELBY picked up his bags and hurriedly departed in the direction indicated by Hepford. He passed the house, not daring to look up the high porch steps into the wide, open hall. Presently on a bypath that led to the bunkhouse he encountered a fine-looking giant of a cowboy whose eyes were like gimlets.
“Where can I find Hawk Siebert?” asked Ernest.
“Gawd only knows,” drawled the tall cowpoke, and strode on. Ernest halted irresolute. He found it hard to understand the indifference, the distrust, not to say open antagonism of these Westerners. His instinct was to shake the dust from this inhospitable place. But his feet seemed already to have taken hold of soil that belonged to him. And perhaps even if that were not true, the strange fascination which the Hepford girl held for him would not have let him leave. Again he started on.
The young Iowan had begun to realize by this time that a tenderfoot cowboy did not cut much of a figure on a big ranch. This was precisely what he wanted, yet he reacted to the situation with the feelings of Ernest Selby. Perhaps when Anne Hepford found out who he really was, she would not be so snobbish. But it occurred to Ernest right then that when the time came there would not be much real pleasure in being noticed because he owned Red Rock Ranch. He did not know which he cared for less—her present snobbish attitude or the feeling of hatred and resentment she was sure to exhibit when she discovered who he really was.
A stable boy directed Ernest to the bunkhouse and said he would find Siebert there. Arriving at the long one-story structure he espied several young cowboys and an older man sitting on the porch.
“I’m hunting for Hawk Siebert,” Selby announced.
“Heah you are. But I don’t recollect ever doin’ anythin’ to you,” replied the foreman dubiously. Ernest liked his face and eyes, even though they had distinct association with his first name.
“I’m asking for a job,” said Ernest.
“Where?” queried Siebert, growing more attentive. And the other cowboys now became aware of the stranger’s presence.
“Here–at Red Rock Ranch.”
“What kind of a job?”
“Any kind.”
“Cowpuncher, eh?”
“I’m not choosey.”
“Hope you ain’t one of them guntotin’ riders from Texas?”
“I’m from Iowa. ... Yes, I’m toting a gun.”
At this juncture the tall, good-looking cowboy whom Ernest had encountered out in front arrived on the scene singing:
Son-of-a-gun from Ioway
He stoled my gurl-1 away-y.
Hawk Siebert now took keener note of the job-seeker, and after a moment, when the singer had clanked across the porch and into the bunkhouse, he asked: “Ride out here with the boss’s daughter?”
“She was on the stage,” replied Ernest.
“You any particular friend of hers?”
“Me!–Never saw Miss Hepford before today.”
“Wal, a day’s a long time out heah in the West,” remarked Siebert dryly.
Selby grasped a good deal from the foreman’s last remarks, and he thanked his lucky stars that he had not introduced himself as Miss Hepford had ordered him to. Siebert ran a speculative and appreciative eye over the new applicant for work at Red Rock. Ernest had no fear on the score of his stature. The distant yet intent regard of the cowboys, however, made him begin to grow red under the collar.
“This one has been pretty long for me,” admitted Ernest.
“You look like you’ve been in a scrap,” observed Siebert.
“Yes. But nothing to speak of.”
“Ahuh. Depends on how you look at it.”
“Say, Hawk,” called the cowboy who had gone inside. “Iowa is a plumb bad breedin’ ground for tramps, grub-line punchers, gun-throwers an’ lady-killers who hire toughs to make a fake stage holdup.”
Siebert paid no heed to this surprising sally.
“What’s your name?”
“Ernest Howard.”
“Wal, I’m not needin’ a rider, but I might take on a feller who was handy all around.”
“I’m certainly the fellow you want,” said Ernest, with a smile.
“Diggin’ fence-post holes, stretchin’ barb’ wire, pitchin’ hey, doin’ errands, an’ sich as thet?” drawled the foreman.
Selby did not know then that for a cowboy to admit willingness to do these menial jobs on a ranch was to define his status as the lowest of the low.
“Such as that is apple pie for me,” he replied, smiling. “I want a job, and I’m not particular.” And he was not sure but that his eagerness and his smile went far with Hawk Siebert.
“You’re on. Forty a month. Throw in with Nebraskie Kemp, at the end of the house,” concluded the foreman, pointing to an open door farther down the porch.
Ernest thanked him and turned back to fetch his baggage. One of the cowboys let out a wail. “Aw, Hawk, what’d you pick on me fer? Throw him in with Dude or Lunky.” A yell went up from another cowboy, and before the Iowan got out of hearing his ears were burning. Between the redheaded Hepford girl and these cowboys, it began to look as though he were going to have a tough time of it here at Red Rock. Still, in spite of the young lady’s haughty attitude and the cowpokes’ evident dislike, the newcomer began to see interesting possibilities in acting as a hired hand on his own ranch.
Ernest made for the end of the bunkhouse, as he had been directed, and discovered the door of that room open, and a cherub-faced cowboy slamming things around in a petulant fashion.
“Are you Nebraskie Kemp?” asked Ernest, genially, with his most engaging smile.
“I shore am, wuss luck,” replied the other.
“Say, but I’m lucky. I was afraid I’d draw that pretty singing cowboy for a bunkmate. You look like a human being.”
“Wal, I ain’t so blame shore I can return the compliment,” returned Nebraskie gruffly, but he was studying his new bunkmate with big, bright blue eyes.
“See here. If I’m not welcome I’d rather sleep in the barn. That wasn’t a very good crack you made to Siebert, after I left. ‘What’d he want to pick on you fer?’ I’m not a polecat. For that matter, how do you know who or what I am?”
“Reckon thet’s the hell of it,” agreed Nebraskie. “But I’ve got to take a chanct on you. So get down an’ come in.”
Ernest brought his bags inside and set them down. He thought it best to have a straight talk with this cowboy.
“I have to take the same chance on you, don’t I?”
“Wal, come to think of thet, yes, you do,” replied Nebraskie with a laugh.
“I’ll lay my cards on the table. I’m a tenderfoot. Bad in need of a job—and a friend, besides. I’ll probably be a lamb among wolves in this Red Rock outfit. But–how do you know I’m not worth sticking up for?”
“I don’t. An’ you give yourself away as no cowbo
y or Westerner ever did, when you let Siebert saddle you with a job no self-respectin’ cowboy would. But heah a stranger is no good till he proves it ain’t so.”
“All right, I ask no more than that,” replied the tenderfoot simply, and offered his hand.
The nonplussed Nebraskie took it reluctantly.
“You got a bad start, young feller. Whenever a puncher comes ridin’ in with Miss Anne or after her—wal, he’s throwin’ a red flag in Dude Hyslip’s face. An’ Dude sort of runs the outfit, after Hawk.”
“I’ll bet Dude is that conceited singing cowboy,” declared Ernest.
“Shore is. But don’t let Dude hear you callin’ him a singin’ cowboy.”
“Nebraskie, I didn’t come with Miss Hepford or after her. Anybody can see that she’s mighty easy to look at. But I came here to get a job. But I’m asking you not to tell Hyslip this. Let him think what he darn pleases. Only–if he keeps on singing that son-of-a-gun from Ioway song—there’s going to be trouble.”
“Ahuh. What’d you say your name was?”
“Ernest Howard,” replied Ernest.
“Wal, your handle will be Ioway, shore as shootin’, same as mine is Nebraskie. ... An’, Ioway, you can bet your sweet life Dude will go on singin’ thet song.”
“Then I’ll just plain have to lick him,” asserted Ernest.
“You’ll what-t?” exploded Nebraskie.
“I’ll lick him. And don’t you think I can’t do it! He may be at home on a horse. But he walks as if his feet hurt. And I’m at home on the ground.”
“Ioway, if you lick Dude Hyslip, by golly, there’d be some chanct of your lastin’ heah at Red Rock.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll last all right,” said Ernest with a good-natured laugh.
“I kinda like you, doggone it,” returned Nebraskie, peevishly. “Wal, you take the upstairs bunk an’ throw your outfit around.”
