“Pretty mess I’m in,” he muttered to himself, disparagingly. “This horse-hunting is no good.” And he reflected that years of it had made him what he was—only a wild-horse wrangler, poor and with no prospects of any profit. Long he had dreamed of a ranch where he could breed great horses, of a home and perhaps a family. Vain, idle dreams! The romance, the thrilling adventure, the constant change of scene and action, characteristic of the hard life of a wild-horse hunter, had called to him in his youth and fastened upon him in his manhood. What else could he do now? He had become a lone hunter, a wanderer of the wild range, and it was not likely that he could settle down to the humdrum toil of a farmer or cattleman.
“I might—if—if---------- he whispered, and looked up through the dark foliage of the cedar to the white blinking stars. In the shadow, and in the pale star-light, there seemed to hover a vague sweet face that sometimes haunted his inner vision. Bitterly he shut his eyes. It was a delusion. He was no longer a boy. The best in his life seemed past, gone, useless. What folly to dream of a woman! And suddenly into his mind flashed Manerube’s scathing repetition of gos- sip spoken in Bluff. Squaw man!
“All because I befriended a Navajo girl-—as I’ve done here for Sosie!” he muttered. It galled Chane. Suppose that rumor got to the ears of his father and mother, still living at the old home in Colorado! What would his little brother Chess think? Chane still cherished the family pride. If he had not made anything of his life it had not been because he was not well born, or had lacked home influences and schooling. It shocked him to realize how far he had gone. Few people in that wild country would rightly interpret attention or succor to an Indian girl. Chane had never cared in the least what had been said about him or his ways. He had been blunt in speech and forceful in action toward those brutes who betrayed the simple-hearted, primitive Indian maidens. And these cowards had retaliated by spreading poisonous rumor. What little justice there was in it! He knew deep in his soul how honest and fair he had been. But he had befriended more than one little Indian girl like Sosie, and ridden with them and talked with them, interested, amused, and sometimes in his lonely moods grateful even for their feminine company. Chane could not see how that had been wrong. Yet these Indian girls were only too quick to care for a white man- good or bad. They were little savages of the desert. Chane realized where he had given wrong impression of himself, perhaps to them, certainly to the white men who had run across him among the Indians.
Chane endured a bitter hour of reflection and self- analysis. A morbid resignation seemed about to fix its dark lichen upon his heart. What folly these dreams! How futile to love a horse! Was even the grand Panquitch on Wild Horse Mesa worth the time and toil and pang that it would take to capture him, if such were possible? What hope lay in the future? Why not forget his absurd dreams, his strange belief in the romance that would come to him, his parents and the little brother? Why not drift as the tumbleweed of the desert, where the wind listed? Why not find some solace in little Sosie’s dusky eyes?
But with that thought a revolt stirred in Chane, a fight against the insidious weakness which would make him ashamed of himself. Whatever he had done and however he had failed of the thing people called success, he had remained a man. He clung to the idea. Evil tongues could not hurt him. His life, profitless as it was, still had wonderful charm. He was free, healthy, active; he found that the wild desert meant infinitely more to him than he had known; he had loved a horse, and he could love another. There was always his brother to return to. What did anything else matter. Thus the dark mood was beaten down and conquered.
The cool wind had died away, except for low intermittent moans through the cedars, and the lonely desert silence settled down. The brook murmured faintly and the insects sang their melancholy notes, but these only accentuated the vast dead stillness of the solitude, Chane fell asleep.
He awoke at dawn, when the dark luminous light was changing to gray. The September air held a nipping edge of frost. Chane found that something new, a spirit or strength, had seemed to awaken with him. Not resignation nor bitter dissatisfaction with his lot, but stranger, stronger faith-1 His life must be what he felt, not the material gain he had once wanted. He lay there until he heard the men round the camp fire and the crack of unshod hoofs on the stones. Then he arose, and pulling on his boots, and taking up his coat, he strode toward the camp. His saddle and packs lay under a cedar. From a pack he lifted his gun-belt, containing a Colt and shells, which he buckled round his waist. This he had not been in the habit of wearing.
Two Piutes had ridden in and sat on their mustangs, waiting to be invited to eat. Three of the men were busy—Slack rolling biscuit dough, Horn coming up with water, and McPherson cutting slices from a haunch of sheep meat. Chane’s quick eye caught sight of Manerube washing down at the brook.
“Say, Weymer, your Injun pards hev rustled in for chineago, as usual,” remarked Slack, dryly.
“So I see. Seems a habit of riders—rustling in on my camp to eat,” replied Chane.
“Wal, them Piutes are pretty white. They’d never let any fellar go hungry,” said Horn.
McPherson looked up at Chane with a curious little gleam in his sharp eyes. He was not so young as his comrades. His face showed experience of wild life in all its phases, and the bronzed lean cheeks, the hard jaw, the lined brow seemed parts of a mask which hid his thought.
“Ahuh! Packin’ your hardware,” he said, with a glance at Chane’s gun.
“Yep. These September days are getting chilly,” replied Chane, with animation.
Slack burst into a loud guffaw and Horn’s dark, still visage wrinkled with a grin.
“What’s earin’ you, pards?” queried McPherson, with asperity, as he shifted his penetrating gaze to his comrades. “It shore ain’t funny—Weymer struttin’ out hyar, waggin’ a gun.”
“Wal, it was what he said that hit my funny bone,” returned Horn.
“Weymer,” went on McPherson, slowly, “I reckon you ain’t feelin’ none too friendly toward Manerube. An’ I’m sayin’ as I don’t blame you. What he said last night wasn’t easy to swaller. I told him so. He didn’t show up much of a gentleman, seein’ he’s been parin’ at your camp fire. Wal, I reckon he’s sorry an’ ain’t achin’ to start trouble with you.”
One casual glance at McPherson’s calm face was enough to convince Chane that the man was as deep as the sea. His appearance bore out too well the content of his words. A less keen observor than Chane would have been won to charitableness. But Chane had felt too poignantly and thought too deeply to be deceived by anyone. These men did not mean well by him.
“McPherson, I never look for trouble—except in front of me, and especially behind,” replied Chane, sarcastically. “I just woke up feeling uncomfortable without my gun.”
“Ahuh!” ejaculated the other, soberly, and bent to his task.
Chane reasoned that he had not the slightest fear of these men and wanted them to know it. As long as he kept them face to face they could not shoot him in the back; and if the issue came to an open fight at close range they would suffer as much as he. Men were not quick to draw under such circumstances. As for a fight at long range, Chane would have all the best of that, for he possessed a rifle, which he meant to hide when he did not have it in his hands.
Presently Manerube came up the slope from the brook, wiping his clean-shaven face with a scarf. Chane conceded that the man was a handsome devil, calculated to stir the pulse of a white woman, let alone an Indian girl.
“Good morning, Weymer,” he said, not without effort. “Hope you’ll overlook the way I shot off my mouth last night. I was sore.”
“Sure. Glad to forget it,” replied Chane, cheerfully. Manifestly Manerube had been talked to.
At this juncture Slack called out, “Come an’ git it.”
Whereupon the five men attended to the business of breakfast, a matter of cardinal importance in the desert. They ate in silence until all the food and drink had been consumed.
“Bud, what’re you doing today?” inquired Manerube, as he rose, wiping his mouth.
“Wal, thet depends on the boss of this hyar outfit,” answered McPherson, slowly, and he stared hard at Manerube. But this worthy did not take the hint, if there really was one.
“Weymer, you said once you’d be hitting the trail for the Hole in the Wall,” went on Manerube, “soon as the Piutes rounded up the rest of the mustangs you bought.”
‘Why, yes. What’s it to you?” asked Chane, easily.
“You’re going to sell in Wund, so you said. Well, that’s where we’re bound for, and we’ll help you drive through. But let’s rustle along. It’s been raining up at the head of the San Juan. There’ll be high water.”
“The San Juan is up now, so Toddy told me yesterday. I reckon I’ll wait for it to go down,” replied Chane.
“But that might take weeks,” declared Manerube.
“I don’t care how long it takes,” retorted Chane. “You fellows don’t need to wait for me. I’ll take some Piutes. I’d rather have them, anyhow.”
“The hell you say!” burst out Manerube, suddenly flaming.
At that McPherson violently struck Manerube in the chest and thrust him backward.
“See hyar, Bent Manerube,” he said, in voice contrasting with his action, “we ain’t goin’ to have you talk for us. Me an’ Jim an’ Hod are shore glad to wait on Weymer. We’re out of grub, an’ we don’t aim to let you make him sore on us.”
The sullen amaze with which Manerube took this action and speech convinced Chane that he had no authority over these three men, and a break was imminent.
Chapter Two
CHANE abruptly left the camp-fire circle, not averse to the possibility of argument and action that might leave him less to contend with. Loud angry voices attested to a quarrel among the men. He made significant note of the fact that he did not distinguish McPherson’s voice.
“Cool sort of chap,” soliloquized Chane. “If Mane- rube has any sense he’ll not rile that man. But I hope he does.”
Chane possessed himself of his rifle, which during his daily rides he had left in camp. For a wild-horse hunter a rifle was a nuisance and a burden on a saddle. But he had reflected that such a long-range weapon might do more than even up the advantage Manerube jmd his associates had in numbers, for they carried only the short Colt gun common to riders of the range. In the future he would pack the rifle on his saddle, whether it was cumbersome or not.
With this in hand, and his bridle, Chane left camp to hunt for his horses. Glancing back from the edge of the slope, he was pleased to observe that the four unwelcome guests were engaged in a hot argument.
“I’d sure like to know just what and who they are,” muttered Chane. “I’ll bet they’re going to steal my mustangs. Well, that’d be no great loss. But they’ve all taken a shine to Brutus. I don’t like that. They’ll have to take him over my dead body.”
Brutus was Chane’s new horse, an acquisition of this last trip through the Mormon country. Chane had not ridden him .and had not yet seen him go through any kind of test. Two years earlier, Chane had lost a beloved horse and since then had been indifferent to all horses except the great and almost mythical Panquitch. The loss had hurt Chane so deeply that he dreaded to find another animal he might love. Brutus, however, had been gradually growing on him, especially since the arrival of the four self-styled horse-wranglers. Horn had tried to beg Brutus of Chane; Slack wanted to borrow him; Manerube offered to buy him; and McPherson jocularly declared that he intended to steal him.
“Funny how men will take to a certain horse,” thought Chane as he swung down the slope. “Now Brutus filled my eye first time I saw him,but I’d never have bought him if he hadn’t been such a bargain Reckon I was wrong.”
And Chane tried to recall the remarkable eulogy given the horse by the Mormons. Brutus had come from the finest strain of Colorado-bred stock. His sire was a stallion that had been born wild; his dam had come from a long line of blooded horses. He was six years old. All his life he had run over the rockiest, brushiest country in western Colorado. His equal as a cow horse had never been seen there. And as he had not been ridden by cowboys, his fine disposition had not been ruined. He had never been known to fall, or pitch, or balk at anything. He was fast arfd no ridef yet had ever tired, him. So much Chane remembered, and he was surprised at himself that he had not taken credence of it long ago. He understood his reluctance, however, for the very thought of Brutus or even Panquitch taking the vacant place in his heart gave him a pang.
Chane left the trail where it crossed Beaver Brook, and followed the watercourse up the canyon, through willow and cedar thickets, under a looming yellow wall of stone. Chane had three pack horses, and two saddle horses besides Brutus; these had been herded by Toddy Nokin up Beaver Canyon. The brush was still wet from the rain yesterday and the water of the brook was not so clear and amber-colored as usual. Bits of brush and dead leaves floated on the swift current. Blue jays screeched from the pinons; canyon swifts twittered and glinted in the sunlight; Indian sheep were bleating somewhere in the distance.
Presently the canyon opened into a narrow park, purple with sage, dotted by red rocks, and bordered by a wandering line of green where grass and willows lined the brook. Here Chane found his horses. He had been riding a white animal called Andy, which, according to the wranglers, was known at St. George as a one-man horse. Chane, more out of vanity to show he could manage Andy than for any other reason, had given him precedence over Brutus. Andy was white, except for a few black markings, lean, rangy, tough, and of nervous disposition. Chane had found him good in every kind of going except sand. Andy did not know sand.
Chane approached the horses with the usual caution of a wrangler, and all of them, except Brutus, moved out of his reach. Brutus gave his superb head a quick uplift and regarded Chane with keen, distrustful eyes.
“Brutus, I reckon we’ve got horse thieves in camp, so I’m going to look you over,” said Chane. He had a habit of talking to horses, perhaps owing to the fact that he was so much alone.
Whereupon he walked round Brutus as if he had never seen him before. He made the discovery that he had never really looked at Brutus. Reluctantly Chane had to confess the horse was magnificent. And he suffered a twinge of conscience that he could ever be so far faithless to the memory of the beloved horse of the past. That confession and remorse changed the status of Brutus.
“Well, you and I must get acquainted,” Chane decided.
Brutus was not exactly a giant of a horse, though he was much higher and heavier than the average. His muscular development made him appear unusual ; indeed, a little more muscle would have deformed him. His chest was massive, broad, deep, a wonderful storehouse of energy. Such powerful, perfectly proportioned, and sound legs Chane had seldom seen, and his great hoofs matched them. His body was large, round, smooth, showing no bones. He had a broad arched neck and a fine head, which he held high as he looked directly at Chane. There was an oval white spot on his face, just below the wide space between his eyes. His color was a dark mottled brown, almost black, and his coat glistened in the sunlight.
At the last Chane always judged horses as he judged men—by the look in their eyes. Horses had as much character as men, and similar emotions and instincts. Chane had a theory, not shared by many wranglers, that kindness brought out the best in any horse. If a horse was mean it did not always follow that he had been born so.
Brutus had large dark eyes, soft yet full of spirit, just now questioning and uncertain. They showed his intelligence. Ghane made sure that the horse had not been spurred and jerked and jammed around as had most horses six years old. He had not been hurt. The way he threw up his head appealed strongly to Chane. There was pride and fire in his look. It seemed he questioned Chane—what have you to say for yourself?
“Brutus, I had—a horse once,” said Chane, faltering a little, “and I haven’t cared for one since. . . , But you and I are going to b
e friends.”
With the words Chane’s old gentle and confident way of handling horses came back to him. He approached Brutus, placing a slow sure strong hand on the glossy neck. Brutus quivered, but did not jerk away. He snorted, and turned his head to look at Chane. It pleased Chane to find that he did not need a rope or halter. Brutus stood to be bridled, not altogether satisfied about it, not liking the rifle Chane held under his arm, but he took the bit easily and began to champ it. Then he followed Chane willingly. He had a long stride and his nose soon came abreast of Chane’s shoulder. Before Chane reached camp he decided that Brutus had missed the attention and company of a rider.
Chane discovered McPherson and his two comrades in camp, but Manerube was not in sight. While Chane saddled the horse McPherson strode up. His face seemed the same rough bronze mask, his eyes told nothing, yet there were traces about his person of recent spent passion.
“Wal, Manerube helped hisself to your grub, packed, an’ rode off,” announced McPherson.
“He’s welcome,” declared Chane, heartily.
“Me an’ him had some hard words, but he wouldn’t throw a gun, so nothin’ come of it.”
“Where’d he head for?” queried Chane.
“He said Bluff, but I reckon thet’s a bluff, all right,” returned the other. “He took the main trail out of Beaver. I climbed the stone over thar an’ watched him. I seen him turn off the trail in the cedars.” McPherson pointed with sturdy hand across the canyon toward the foot of a cedared ridge. A trail branched off there, leading to the camp of the Piutes.
“I savvy, Bud,” rejoined Chane, laconically. “You’re giving me a hunch.”
“Man, shore as you’re a hoss-wrangler he’ll rustle off with your little Piute squaw.”
Chane’s good humor gave place to irritation. He eyed McPherson with plain disfavor.
“She’s not my squaw,” he said, sharply.
Grey, Zane - Novel 27 Page 2
