The Eagles Heart

by Garland, Hamlin

  It was mighty serious business. To take Kintuck and hit the trail for the Kalispels over a thousand miles of mountain and plain, was simple, but to thrust himself amid the mad rush of a great city made his bold heart quail. Money was a minor consideration in the hills, but in the city it was a matter of life and death. Money he must now have, and as he could not borrow or steal it, it must be earned. In a month his wages would amount to one hundred dollars, but that was too slow. He saw no other way, however, so set his teeth and prepared to go on with the "fool business" of guarding the treasure wagon of the Express Company.

  His mind reverted often to the cowboy tournament which was about to come off, after hanging fire for a month, during which Grassi wrestled with the problem of how to hold a bullfight in opposition to the laws of the State. "If I could whirl in and catch one of those purses," thought Mose, "I could leave at the end of August. If I don't I must hang on till the first of October."

  He determined to enter for the roping contest and for the cowboy race and the revolver practice. Marshal Haney was delighted. "I'll attend to the business, but the entrance fees will be about twenty dollars."

  This staggered Mose. It meant an expenditure of nearly one fourth his month's pay in entrance fees, not to speak of the expense of keeping Kintuck, for the old horse had to go into training and be grain-fed as well. However, he was too confident of winning to hesitate. He drew on his wages, and took a day off to fetch Kintuck, whom he found fat and hearty and very dirty.

  The boys at the Reynolds ranch were willing to bet on Mose, and every soul determined to be there. Cora said quietly: "I know you'll win."

  "Well, I don't expect to sweep the board, but I'll get a lunch while the rest are getting a full meal," he replied, and returned to his duties.

  The weather did not change for the tournament. Each morning the sun arose flashing with white, undimmed fire. At ten o'clock great dazzling white clouds developed from hidden places behind huge peaks, and as they expanded each let fall a veil of shimmering white storms that were hail on the heights and sleet on the paths in the valleys. These clouds passed swiftly, the sun came out, the dandelions shone vividly through their coverlet of snow, the eaves dripped, the air was like March, and the sunsets like November.

  Naturally, Sunday was the day fixed upon for the tournament, and early on that day miners in clean check shirts and bright new blue overalls began to stream away up the road which led to the race track, some two miles away, on the only level ground for a hundred miles. Swift horses hitched to light open buggies whirled along, loaded down with men. Horsemen galloped down the slopes in squadrons—and such horsemen!—cowboys from "Lost Park" and "the Animas." Prospectors like Casey and Kelly who were quite as much at home on a horse as with a pick in a ditch, and men like Marshal Haney and Grassi, who were all-round plainsmen, and by that same token born horsemen. Haney and Kelly rode with Reynolds and Mose, while Cora and Mrs. Reynolds followed in a rusty buggy drawn by a fleabitten gray cow pony, sedate with age.

  Kintuck was as alert as a four-year-old. His rest had filled him to bursting with ambition to do and to serve. His muscles played under his shining skin like those of a trained athlete. Obedient to the lightest touch or word of his master, with ears in restless motion, he curvetted like a racer under the wire.

  "Wouldn't know that horse was twelve years old, would you, gentlemen?" said Reynolds. "Well, so he is, and he has covered fifteen thousand miles o' trail."

  Mose was at his best. With vivid tie flowing from the collar of his blue shirt, with a new hat properly crushed in on the crown in four places, with shining revolver at his hip, and his rope coiled at his right knee, he sat his splendid horse, haughty and impassive of countenance, responding to the greetings of the crowd only with a slight nod or a wave of the hand.

  It seemed to him that the population of the whole State—at least its men—was assembled within the big stockade. There were a few women—just enough to add decorum to the crowd. They were for the most part the wives or sisters or sweethearts of those who were to contest for prizes, but as Mose rode around the course he passed "the princess" sitting in her shining barouche and waving a handkerchief. He pretended not to see her, though it gave him pleasure to think that the most brilliantly-dressed woman on the grounds took such interest in him. Another man would have ridden up to her carriage, but Mose kept on steadily to the judge's stand, where he found a group of cowboys discussing the programme with Haney, the marshal of the day.

  Mose already knew his dangerous rival—a powerful and handsome fellow called Denver Dan, whose face was not unlike his own. His nose was straight and strong, his chin finely modeled, and his head graceful, but he was heavier, and a persistent flush on his nose and in his eyelids betrayed the effects of liquor. His hands were small and graceful and he wore his hat with a certain attractive insolence, but his mouth was cruel and his eyes menacing. When in liquor he was known to be ferocious. He was mounted on a superbly pointed grade broncho, and all his hangings were of costly Mexican workmanship and betrayed use.

  "The first thing is a 'packing contest,'" read Haney.

  "Oh, to h——l with that, I'm no packer," growled Dan.

  "I try that," said Mose; "I let nothing get away to-day."

  "Entrance fee one dollar."

  "Here you are." Mose tossed a dollar.

  "Then 'roping and holding contest.'"

  "Now you're talking my business," exclaimed Dan.

  "There are others," said Mose.

  Dan turned a contemptuous look on the speaker—but changed his expression as he met Mose's eyes.

  "Howdy, Mose?"

  "So's to sit a horse," Mose replied in a tone which cut. He was not used to being patronized by men of Dan's set.

  The crowd perceived the growing rivalry between the two men and winked joyously at each other.

  At last all was arranged. The spectators were assembled on the rude seats. The wind, sweet, clear, and cool, came over the smooth grassy slopes to the west, while to the east, gorgeous as sunlit marble, rose the great snowy peaks with huge cumulus clouds—apparently standing on edge—peeping over their shoulders from behind. Mose observed them and mentally calculated that it would not shower till three in the afternoon.

  In the track before the judge's stand six piles of "truck," each pile precisely like the others, lay in a row. Each consisted of a sack of flour, a bundle of bacon, a bag of beans, a box, a camp stove, a pick, a shovel, and a tent. These were to be packed, covered with a mantle, and caught by "the diamond hitch."

  Mose laid aside hat and coat, and as the six pack horses approached, seized the one intended for him. Catching the saddle blanket up by the corners, he shook it straight, folded it once, twice—and threw it to the horse. The sawbuck followed it, the cinch flying high so that it should go clear. A tug, a grunt from the horse, and the saddle was on. Unwinding the sling ropes, he made his loops, and end-packed the box. Against it he put both flour and beans. Folding the tent square he laid it between. On this he set the stove, and packing the smaller bags around it, threw on the mantle. As he laid the hitch and began to go around the pack, the crowd began to cheer:

  "Go it, Mose!"

  "He's been there before."

  "Well, I guess," said another.

  Mose set his foot to the pack and "pinched" the hitch in front. Nothing remained now but the pick, shovel, and coffee can. The tools he crowded under the ropes on either side, tied the cans under the pack at the back and called Kintuck, "Come on, boy." The old horse with shining eyes drew near. Catching his mane, Mose swung to the saddle, Kintuck nipped the laden cayuse, and they were off while the next best man was still worrying over the hitch.

  "Nine dollars to the good on that transaction," muttered Mose, as the marshal handed him a ten dollar gold piece.

  "The next exercise on the programme," announced Haney, "will be the roping contest. The crowd will please be as quiet as possible while this is going on. Bring on your cows."

  Do
wn the track in a cloud of dust came a bunch of cattle of all shapes and sizes. They came snuffing and bawling, urged on by a band of cowboys, while a cordon of older men down the track stopped and held them before the judge's stand.

  "First exercise—'rope and hold,'" called the marshal. "Denver Dan comes first."

  Dan spurred into the arena, his rope swinging gracefully in his supple up-raised wrist.

  "Which one you want?" he asked.

  "The line-back yearling," called Haney.

  With careless cast Dan picked up both hind feet of the calf—his horse set his hoofs and held the bawling brute.

  "All right," called the judge. The rope was slackened and the calf leaped up. Dan then successively picked up any foot designated by the marshal. "Left hind foot! Right fore foot!" and so on with almost unerring accuracy. His horse, calm and swift, obeyed every word and every shift of his rider's body. The crowd cheered, and those who came after added nothing to the contest.

  Mose rode into the inclosure with impassive face. He could only duplicate the deeds of those who had gone before so long as his work was governed by the marshal—but when, as in the case of others, he was free to "put on frills," he did so. Tackling the heaviest and wildest steer, he dropped his rope over one horn and caught up one foot, then taking a loose turn about his pommel he spoke to Kintuck. The steer reached the end of the rope with terrible force. It seemed as if the saddle must give way—but the strain was cunningly met, and the brute tumbled and laid flat with a wild bawl. While Kintuck held him Mose took a cigar from his pocket, bit the end off, struck a match and puffed carelessly and lazily. It was an old trick, but well done, and the spectators cheered heartily.

  After a few casts of almost equal brilliancy, Mose leaped to the ground with the rope in his hand, and while Kintuck looked on curiously, he began a series of movements which one of Delmar's Mexicans had taught him. With the noose spread wide he kept it whirling in the air as if it were a hoop. He threw it into the air and sprang through it, he lowered it to the ground, and leaping into it, flung it far above his head. In his hand this inert thing developed snakelike action. It took on loops and scallops and retained them, apparently in defiance of all known laws of physics—controlled and governed by the easy, almost imperceptible motions of his steel-like wrist.

  "Forty-five dollars more to the good," said Mose grimly as the decision came in his favor.

  "See here—going to take all the prizes?" asked one of the judges.

  "So long as you keep to my line of business," replied he.

  The races came next. Kintuck took first money on the straightaway dash, but lost on the long race around the pole. It nearly broke his heart, but he came in second to Denver Dan's sorrel twice in succession.

  Mose patted the old horse and said: "Never mind, old boy, you pulled in forty dollars more for me."

  Reynolds had tears in his eyes as he came up.

  "The old hoss cain't compete on the long stretches. He's like a middle-aged man—all right for a short dash—but the youngsters have the best wind—they get him on the mile course."

  In the trained pony contest the old horse redeemed himself. He knelt at command, laid out flat while Mose crouched behind, and at the word "Up!" sprang to his feet and waited—then with his master clinging to his mane he ran in a circle or turned to right or left at signal. All the tricks which the cavalry had taught their horses, Mose, in years on the trail, had taught Kintuck. He galloped on three legs and waltzed like a circus horse. He seemed to know exactly what his master said to him.

  A man with a big red beard came up to Mose as he rode off the track and said:

  "What'll you take for that horse?"

  Mose gave him a savage glance. "He ain't for sale."

  The broncho-busting contest Mose declined.

  "How's that?" inquired Haney, who hated to see his favorite "gig back" at a point where his courage could be tested.

  "I've busted all the bronchos for fun I'm going to," Mose replied.

  Dan called in a sneering tone: "Bring on your varmints. I'm not dodgin' mean cayuses to-day."

  Mose could not explain that for Mary's sake he was avoiding all danger. There was risk in the contest and he knew it, and he couldn't afford to take it.

  "That's all right!" he sullenly replied. "I'll be with you later in the game."

  A wall-eyed roan pony, looking dull and stupid, was led before the stand. Saddled and bridled he stood dozing while the crowd hooted with derision.

  "Don't make no mistake!" shouted Haney; "he's the meanest critter on the upper fork."

  A young lad named Jimmy Kincaid first tackled the job, and as he ran alongside and tried the cinch, the roan dropped an ear back—the ear toward Jimmy, and the knowing ones giggled with glee. "He's wakin'up! Look out, Jim!"

  The lad gathered the reins in his left hand, seized the pommel with his right, and then the roan disclosed his true nature. He was an old rebel. He did not waste his energies on common means. He plunged at once into the most complicated, furious, and effective bucking he could devise, almost without moving out of his tracks—and when the boy, stunned and bleeding at the nose, sprawled in the dust, the roan moved away a few steps and dozed, panting and tense, apparently neither angry nor frightened.

  One of the Reynolds gang tried him next and "stayed with him" till he threw himself. When he arose the rider failed to secure his stirrups and was thrown after having sat the beast superbly. The miners were warming to the old roan. Many of them had never seen a pitching broncho before, and their delight led to loud whoops and jovial outcries.

  "Bully boy, roan! Shake 'em off!"

  Denver Dan tried him next and sat him, haughtily contemptuous, till he stopped, quivering with fatigue and reeking with sweat.

  "Oh, well!" yelled a big miner, "that ain't a fair shake for the pony; you should have took him when he was fresh." And the crowd sustained him in it.

  "Here comes one that is fresh," called the marshal, and into the arena came a wicked-eyed, superbly-fashioned black roan horse, plainly wild and unbroken, led by two cowboys, one on either side.

  Joe Grassi shook a handfull of bills down at the crowd. "Here's a hundred dollars to the man who'll set that pony three minutes by the watch."

  "This is no place to tackle such a brute as that," said Reynolds.

  Mose was looking straight ahead with a musing look in his eyes.

  Denver Dan walked out. "I need that hundred dollars; nail it to a post for a few minutes, will ye?"

  This was no tricky old cow pony, but a natively vicious, powerful, and cunning young horse. While the cowboys held him Dan threw off his coat and hat and bound a bandanna over the bronchos's head and pulled it down over his eyes. Laying the saddle on swiftly, but gently, he cinched it strongly. With determined and vigorous movement, he thrust the bit into his mouth.

  "Slack away!" he called to the ropers. The horse, nearly dead for lack of breath, drew a deep sigh.

  Haney called out: "Stand clear, everybody, clear the road!"

  And casting one rope to the ground, Dan swung into the saddle.

  For just an instant the horse crouched low and waited—then shot into the air with a tigerish bound and fell stiff-legged. Again and again he flung his head down, humped his back, and sprang into the air grunting and squealing with rage and fear. Dan sat him, but the punishment made him swear. Suddenly the horse dropped and rolled, hoping to catch his rider unawares. Dan escaped by stepping to the ground, but he was white, and the blood was oozing slowly from his nose. As the brute arose, Dan was in the saddle. With two or three tremendous bounds, the horse flung himself into the air like a high-vaulting acrobat, landing so near the fence that Dan, swerving far to the left, was unseated, and sprawled low in the dust while the squealing broncho went down the track bucking and lashing out with undiminished vigor.

  Dan staggered to his feet, stunned and bleeding. He swore most terrible oaths that he would ride that wall-eyed brute if it took a year.

 
"You've had your turn. It was a fair fight," called Kelly.

  "Who's the next ambitious man?" shouted Haney.

  "I don't want no truck with that," said the cowboys among themselves.

  "Not in a place like this," said Jimmy. "A feller's liable to get mashed agin a fence."

  Mose stood with hands gripping a post, his eyes thoughtful. Suddenly he threw off his coat.

  "I'll try him," he said.

  "Oh, I don't think you'd better; it'll bung you all up," cautioned Reynolds.

  Mose said in a low voice: "I'm good for him, and I need that money."

  "Let him breathe awhile," called the crowd as the broncho was brought back, lariated as before. "Give him a show for his life."

  Mose muttered to Reynolds: "He's due to bolt, and I'm going to quirt him a-plenty."

  The spectators, tense with joy, filled the air with advice and warning. "Don't let him get started. Keep him away from the fence."

  Mose wore a set and serious look as he approached the frenzied beast. There was danger in this trick—a broken leg or collar bone might make his foolhardiness costly. In his mind's eye he could foresee the broncho's action. He had escaped down the track once, and would do the same again after a few desperate bounds—nevertheless Mose dreaded the terrible concussion of those stiff-legged leapings.

  Standing beside the animal's shoulder he slipped off the ropes and swung to the saddle. The beast went off as before, with three or four terrible buck jumps, but Mose plied the quirt with wild shouting, and suddenly, abandoning his pitching, the horse set off at a tearing pace around the track. For nearly half way he ran steadily—then began once more to hump his back and leap into the air.

  "He's down!" yelled some one.

  "No, he's up again—and Mose is there," said Haney.

  The crowd, not to be cheated of their fun, raced across the oval where the battle was still going on.

  The princess was white with anxiety and ordered her coachman to "Get there quick as God'll let ye." When she came in sight the horse was tearing at Mose's foot with his teeth.