The Zane Grey Megapack

by Zane Grey

  “My name’s Wade,” said the traveler. “Come from Meeker way. I’m lookin’ for a job with Bellounds.”

  “I’m Lem Billings,” replied the other. “Ridin’ fer White Slides fer years. Reckon the boss’ll be glad to take you on.”

  “Is he around?”

  “Sure. I jest seen him,” replied Billings, as he haltered his horses to a post. “I reckon I ought to give you a hunch.”

  “I’d take that as a favor.”

  “Wal, we’re short of hands,” said the cowboy. “Jest got the round-up over. Hudson was hurt an’ Wils Moore got crippled. Then the boss’s son has been put on as foreman. Three of the boys quit. Couldn’t stand him. This hyar son of Bellounds is a son-of-a-gun! Me an’ pards of mine, Montana an’ Bludsoe, are stickin’ on—wal, fer reasons thet ain’t egzactly love fer the boss. But Old Bill’s the best of bosses.… Now the hunch is—thet if you git on hyar you’ll hev to do two or three men’s work.”

  “Much obliged,” replied Wade. “I don’t shy at that.”

  “Wal, git down an’ come in,” added Billings, heartily.

  He led the way across the square, around the corner of the ranch-house, and up on a long porch, where the arrangement of chairs and blankets attested to the hand of a woman. The first door was open, and from it issued voices; first a shrill, petulant boy’s complaint, and then a man’s deep, slow, patient reply.

  Lem Billings knocked on the door-jamb.

  “Wal, what’s wanted?” called Bellounds.

  “Boss, thar’s a man wantin’ to see you,” replied Lem.

  Heavy steps approached the doorway and it was filled with the large figure of the rancher. Wade remembered Bellounds and saw only a gray difference in years.

  “Good mornin’, Lem, an’ good moinin’ to you, stranger,” was the rancher’s greeting, his bold, blue glance, honest and frank and keen, with all his long experience of men, taking Wade in with one flash.

  Lem discreetly walked to the end of the porch as another figure, that of the son who resembled the father, filled the doorway, with eyes less kind, bent upon the visitor.

  “My name’s Wade. I’m over from Meeker way, hopin’ to find a job with you,” said Wade.

  “Glad to meet you,” replied Bellounds, extending his huge hand to shake Wade’s. “I need you, sure bad. What’s your special brand of work?”

  “I reckon any kind.”

  “Set down, stranger,” replied Bellounds, pulling up a chair. He seated himself on a bench and leaned against the log wall. “Now, when a boy comes an’ says he can do anythin’, why I jest haw! haw! at him. But you’re a man, Wade, an’ one as has been there. Now I’m hard put fer hands. Jest speak out now fer yourself. No one else can speak fer you, thet’s sure. An’ this is bizness.”

  “Any work with stock, from punchin’ steers to doctorin’ horses,” replied Wade, quietly. “Am fair carpenter an’ mason. Good packer. Know farmin’. Can milk cows an’ make butter. I’ve been cook in many outfits. Read an’ write an’ not bad at figures. Can do work on saddles an’ harness, an—”

  “Hold on!” yelled Bellounds, with a hearty laugh. “I ain’t imposin’ on no man, no matter how I need help. You’re sure a jack of all range trades. An’ I wish you was a hunter.”

  “I was comin’ to that. You didn’t give me time.”

  “Say, do you know hounds?” queried Bellounds, eagerly.

  “Yes. Was raised where everybody had packs. I’m from Kentucky. An’ I’ve run hounds off an’ on for years. I’ll tell you—”

  Bellounds interrupted Wade.

  “By all that’s lucky! An’ last, can you handle guns? We ain’t had a good shot on this range fer Lord knows how long. I used to hit plumb center with a rifle. My eyes are pore now. An’ my son can’t hit a flock of haystacks. An’ the cowpunchers are ’most as bad. Sometimes right hyar where you could hit elk with a club we’re out of fresh meat.”

  “Yes, I can handle guns,” replied Wade, with a quiet smile and a lowering of his head. “Reckon you didn’t catch my name.”

  “Wal—no, I didn’t,” slowly replied Bellounds, and his pause, with the keener look he bestowed upon Wade, told how the latter’s query had struck home.

  “Wade—Bent Wade,” said Wade, with quiet distinctness.

  “Not Hell-Bent Wade!” ejaculated Bellounds.

  “The same.… I ain’t proud of the handle, but I never sail under false colors.”

  “Wal, I’ll be damned!” went on the rancher. “Wade, I’ve heerd of you fer years. Some bad, but most good, an’ I reckon I’m jest as glad to meet you as if you’d been somebody else.”

  “You’ll give me the job?”

  “I should smile.”

  “I’m thankin’ you. Reckon I was some worried. Jobs are hard for me to get an’ harder to keep.”

  “Thet’s not onnatural, considerin’ the hell which’s said to camp on your trail,” replied Bellounds, dryly. “Wade, I can’t say I take a hell of a lot of stock in such talk. Fifty years I’ve been west of the Missouri. I know the West an’ I know men. Talk flies from camp to ranch, from diggin’s to town, an’ always someone adds a little more. Now I trust my judgment an’ I trust men. No one ever betrayed me yet.”

  “I’m that way, too,” replied Wade. “But it doesn’t pay, an’ yet I still kept on bein’ that way.… Bellounds, my name’s as bad as good all over western Colorado. But as man to man I tell you—I never did a low-down trick in my life.… Never but once.”

  “An’ what was thet?” queried the rancher, gruffly.

  “I killed a man who was innocent,” replied Wade, with quivering lips, “an’—an’ drove the woman I loved to her death.”

  “Aw! we all make mistakes some time in our lives,” said Bellounds, hurriedly. “I made ’most as big a one as yours—so help me God!…”

  “I’ll tell you—” interrupted Wade.

  “You needn’t tell me anythin’,” said Bellounds, interrupting in his turn. “But at thet some time I’d like to hear about the Lascelles outfit over on the Gunnison. I knowed Lascelles. An’ a pardner of mine down in Middle Park came back from the Gunnison with the dog-gondest story I ever heerd. Thet was five years ago this summer. Of course I knowed your name long before, but this time I heerd it powerful strong. You got in thet mix-up to your neck.… Wal, what consarns me now is this. Is there any sense in the talk thet wherever you land there’s hell to pay?”

  “Bellounds, there’s no sense in it, but a lot of truth,” confessed Wade, gloomily.

  “Ahuh!… Wal, Hell-Bent Wade, I’ll take a chance on you,” boomed the rancher’s deep voice, rich with the intent of his big heart. “I’ve gambled all my life. An’ the best friends I ever made were men I’d helped.… What wages do you ask?”

  “I’ll take what you offer.”

  “I’m payin’ the boys forty a month, but thet’s not enough fer you.”

  “Yes, that’ll do.”

  “Good, it’s settled,” concluded Bellounds, rising. Then he saw his son standing inside the door. “Say, Jack, shake hands with Bent Wade, hunter an’ all-around man. Wade, this’s my boy. I’ve jest put him on as foreman of the outfit, an’ while I’m at it I’ll say thet you’ll take orders from me an’ not from him.”

  Wade looked up into the face of Jack Bellounds, returned his brief greeting, and shook his limp hand. The contact sent a strange chill over Wade. Young Bellounds’s face was marred by a bruise and shaded by a sullen light.

  “Get Billin’s to take you out to thet new cabin an’ sheds I jest had put up,” said the rancher. “You’ll bunk in the cabin.… Aw, I know. Men like you sleep in the open. But you can’t do thet under Old White Slides in winter. Not much! Make yourself to home, an’ I’ll walk out after a bit an’ we’ll look over the dog outfit. When you see thet outfit you’ll holler fer help.”

  Wade bowed his thanks, and, putting on his sombrero, he turned away. As he did so he caught a sound of light, quick footsteps on the far end of the porc
h.

  “Hello, you-all!” cried a girl’s voice, with melody in it that vibrated piercingly upon Wade’s sensitive ears.

  “Mornin’, Columbine,” replied the rancher.

  Bent Wade’s heart leaped up. This girlish voice rang upon the chord of memory. Wade had not the strength to look at her then. It was not that he could not bear to look, but that he could not bear the disillusion sure to follow his first glimpse of this adopted daughter of Bellounds. Sweet to delude himself! Ah! the years were bearing sterner upon his head! The old dreams persisted, sadder now for the fact that from long use they had become half-realities! Wade shuffled slowly across the green square to where the cowboy waited for him. His eyes were dim, and a sickness attended the sinking of his heart.

  “Wade, I ain’t a bettin’ fellar, but I’ll bet Old Bill took you up,” vouchsafed Billings, with interest.

  “Glad to say he did,” replied Wade. “You’re to show me the new cabin where I’m to bunk.”

  “Come along,” said Lem, leading off. “Air you agoin’ to handle stock or chase coyotes?”

  “My job’s huntin’.”

  “Wal, it may be thet from sunup to sundown, but between times you’ll be sure busy otherwise, I opine,” went on Lem. “Did you meet the boss’s son?”

  “Yes, he was there. An’ Bellounds made it plain I was to take orders from him an’ not from his son.”

  “Thet’ll make your job a million times easier,” declared Lem, as if to make up for former hasty pessimism. He led the way past some log cabins, and sheds with dirt roofs, and low, flat-topped barns, out across another brook where willow-trees were turning yellow. Then the new cabin came into view. It was small, with one door and one window, and a porch across the front. It stood on a small elevation, near the swift brook, and overlooking the ranch-house perhaps a quarter of a mile below. Above it, and across the brook, had been built a high fence constructed of aspen poles laced closely together. The sounds therefrom proclaimed this stockade to be the dog-pen.

  Lem helped Wade unpack and carry his outfit into the cabin. It contained one room, the corner of which was filled with blocks and slabs of pine, evidently left there after the construction of the cabin, and meant for fire-wood. The ample size of the stone fireplace attested to the severity of the winters.

  “Real sawed boards on the floor!” exclaimed Lem, meaning to impress the new-comer. “I call this a plumb good bunk.”

  “Much too good for me,” replied Wade.

  “Wal, I’ll look after your hosses,” said Lem. “I reckon you’ll fix up your bunk. Take my hunch an’ ask Miss Collie to find you some furniture an’ sich like. She’s Ole Bill’s daughter, an’ she makes up fer—fer—wal, fer a lot we hev to stand. I’ll fetch the boys over later.”

  “Do you smoke?” asked Wade. “I’ve somethin’ fine I fetched up from Leadville.”

  “Smoke! Me? I’ll give you a hoss right now for a cigar. I git one onct a year, mebbe.”

  “Here’s a box I’ve been packin’ for long,” replied Wade, as he handed it up to Billings. “They’re Spanish, all right. Too rich for my blood!”

  A box of gold could not have made that cowboy’s eyes shine any brighter.

  “Whoop-ee!” he yelled. “Why, man, you’re like the fairy in the kid’s story! Won’t I make the outfit wild? Aw, I forgot. Thar’s only Jim an’ Blud left. Wal, I’ll divvy with them. Sure, Wade, you hit me right. I was dyin’ fer a real smoke. An’ I reckon what’s mine is yours.”

  Then he strode out of the cabin, whistling a merry cowboy tune.

  Wade was left sitting in the middle of the room on his roll of bedding, and for a long time he remained there motionless, with his head bent, his worn hands idly clasped. A heavy footfall outside aroused him from his meditation.

  “Hey, Wade!” called the cheery voice of Bellounds. Then the rancher appeared at the door. “How’s this bunk suit you?”

  “Much too fine for an old-timer like me,” replied Wade.

  “Old-timer! Say, you’re young yet. Look at me. Sixty-eight last birthday! Wal, every dog has his day.… What’re you needin’ to fix this bunk comfortable like?”

  “Reckon I don’t need much.”

  “Wal, you’ve beddin’ an’ cook outfit. Go get a table, an’ a chair an’ a bench from thet first cabin. The boys thet had it are gone. Somethin’ with a back to it, a rockin’-chair, if there’s one. You’ll find tools, an’ boxes, an’ stuff in the workshop, if you want to make a cupboard or anythin’.”

  “How about a lookin’-glass?” asked Wade. “I had a piece, but I broke it.”

  “Haw! Haw! Mebbe we can rustle thet, too. My girl’s good on helpin’ the boys fix up. Woman-like, you know. An’ she’ll fetch you some decorations on her own hook. Now let’s take a look at the hounds.”

  Bellounds led the way out toward the crude dog-corral, and the way he leaped the brook bore witness to the fact that he was still vigorous and spry. The door of the pen was made of boards hung on wire. As Bellounds opened it there came a pattering rush of many padded feet, and a chorus of barks and whines. Wade’s surprised gaze took in forty or fifty dogs, mostly hounds, browns and blacks and yellows, all sizes—a motley, mangy, hungry pack, if he had ever seen one.

  “I swore I’d buy every hound fetched to me, till I’d cleaned up the varmints around White Slides. An’ sure I was imposed on,” explained the rancher.

  “Some good-lookin’ hounds in the bunch,” replied Wade. “An’ there’s hardly too many. I’ll train two packs, so I can rest one when the other’s huntin’.”

  “Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Bellounds, with relief. “I sure thought you’d roar. All this rabble to take care of!”

  “No trouble after I’ve got acquainted,” said Wade. “Have they been hunted any?”

  “Some of the boys took out a bunch. But they split on deer tracks an’ elk tracks an’ Lord knows what all. Never put up a lion! Then again Billings took some out after a pack of coyotes, an’ gol darn me if the coyotes didn’t lick the hounds. An’ wuss! Jack, my son, got it into his head thet he was a hunter. The other mornin’ he found a fresh lion track back of the corral. An’ he ups an’ puts the whole pack of hounds on the trail. I had a good many more hounds in the pack than you see now. Wal, anyway, it was great to hear the noise thet pack made. Jack lost every blamed hound of them. Thet night an’ next day an’ the followin’ they straggled in. But twenty some never did come back.”

  Wade laughed. “They may come yet. I reckon, though, they’ve gone home where they came from. Are any of these hounds recommended?”

  “Every consarned one of them,” declared Bellounds.

  “That’s funny. But I guess it’s natural. Do you know for sure whether you bought any good dogs?”

  “Yes, I gave fifty dollars for two hounds. Got them of a friend in Middle Park whose pack killed off the lions there. They’re good dogs, trained on lion, wolf, an’ bear.”

  “Pick ’em out,” said Wade.

  With a throng of canines crowding and fawning round him, and snapping at one another, it was difficult for the rancher to draw the two particular ones apart so they could be looked over. At length he succeeded, and Wade drove back the rest of the pack.

  “The big fellar’s Sampson an’ the other’s Jim,” said Bellounds.

  Sampson was a huge hound, gray and yellow, with mottled black marks, very long ears, and big, solemn eyes. Jim, a good-sized dog, but small in comparison with the other, was black all over, except around the nose and eyes. Jim had many scars. He was old, yet not past a vigorous age, and he seemed a quiet, dignified, wise hound, quite out of his element in that mongrel pack.

  “If they’re as good as they look we’re lucky,” said Wade, as he tied the ends of his rope round their necks. “Now are there any more you know are good?”

  “Denver, come hyar!” yelled Bellounds. A white, yellow-spotted hound came wagging his tail. “I’ll swear by Denver. An’ there’s one more—Kane. He’s half blood
hound, a queer, wicked kind of dog. He keeps to himself.… Kane! Come hyar!”

  Bellounds tramped around the corral, and finally found the hound in question, asleep in a dusty hole. Kane was the only beautiful dog in the lot. If half of him was bloodhound the other half was shepherd, for his black and brown hair was inclined to curl, and his head had the fine thoroughbred contour of the shepherd. His ears, long and drooping and thin, betrayed the hound in him. Kane showed no disposition to be friendly. His dark eyes, sad and mournful, burned with the fires of doubt.

  Wade haltered Kane, Jim, and Sampson, which act almost precipitated a fight, and led them out of the corral. Denver, friendly and glad, followed at the rancher’s heels.

  “I’ll keep them with me an’ make lead dogs out of them,” said Wade. “Bellounds, that bunch hasn’t had enough to eat. They’re half starved.”

  “Wal, thet’s worried me more’n you’ll guess,” declared Bellounds, with irritation. “What do a lot of cow-punchin’ fellars know about dogs? Why, they nearly ate Bludsoe up. He wouldn’t feed ’em. An’ Wils, who seemed good with dogs, was taken off bad hurt the other day. Lem’s been tryin’ to rustle feed fer them. Now we’ll give back the dogs you don’t want to keep, an’ thet way thin out the pack.”

  “Yes, we won’t need `em all. An’ I reckon I’ll take the worry of this dog-pack off your mind.”

  “Thet’s your job, Wade. My orders are fer you to kill off the varmints. Lions, wolves, coyotes. An’ every fall some ole silvertip gits bad, an’ now an’ then other bears. Whatever you need in the way of supplies jest ask fer. We send regular to Kremmlin’. You can hunt fer two months yet, barrin’ an onusual early winter.… I’m askin’ you—if my son tramps on your toes—I’d take it as a favor fer you to be patient. He’s only a boy yet, an’ coltish.”

  Wade divined that was a favor difficult for Bellounds to ask. The old rancher, dominant and forceful and self-sufficient all his days, had begun to feel an encroachment of opposition beyond his control. If he but realized it, the favor he asked of Wade was an appeal.

  “Bellounds, I get along with everybody,” Wade assured him. “An’ maybe I can help your son. Before I’d reached here I’d heard he was wild, an’ so I’m prepared.”