by Zane Grey
“Shore I seen Molly,” replied the cowboy, frankly. “At the village. But she didn’t see me. Looked sweeter’n a peach to me. Changed a little, though, somehow. Curly says so.”
“Did you hear anything about Hack?”
“Yep. An’ it ain’t good news,” replied Bud, soberly. “Curly reckoned we’d better not tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Wal, you might ride off down there.”
“Bud, tell me if there’s anything to worry you.”
“It ain’t worryin’ us exzactly,” rejoined Bud, scratching his head. “I wanted to tell you, an’ Curly talked ag’in’ it.”
“Jocelyn went to see Molly Dunn,” asserted Jim, quietly.
“He shore did, which ain’t none of our bizness, since thet little devil has no use for us. But, boss, this is damn queer. Hack is makin’ up to the Haverlys. An’ thet means the Cibeque outfit!”
“Well, what of it? I wish he’d quit us, as he’s hinted.”
“What of it? Gosh! I don’t know. But if Hack quits us I’ll shore tell you what Curly an’ I think.”
Hackamore Jocelyn did not ride into camp until late Monday night. This was a break against rules, and Jim saw that the cowboys were keen to get his reaction to it.
“Where’ve you been, Jocelyn?” he asked.
“Down in the brakes to see my gurl,” replied the cowboy, almost gayly. He had not been drinking. There seemed to be a singular elation or buoyancy about him.
“Why didn’t you get back Sunday night, same as Curly and Bud? They went down to West Fork.”
“Hell you say!” In a twinkling Jocelyn was his old self. “Wal, if you want to know I was havin’ too sweet a time with Molly.”
“I’m not inquiring into your private affairs,” said Jim coldly. “But if you take another day off without permission, I’ll fire you. … Do you understand?”
“Wal, I ain’t hard of hearin’, Mister Traft,” replied Jocelyn, softly.
No more was said. Jocelyn ate his supper alone. The cowboys sat silent. Jim sought his bed presently, and tried to find ease from his pain in slumber.
The drift fence went on mile after mile, and one camp followed another. Three weekends in succession Jocelyn rode down to West Fork, but on each occasion he returned some time late on Sunday night. The other cowboys ceased riding to Flagerstown. Curly and Bud rode off alone the second weekend, evidently bent on a mission of their own, which Jim guessed to be the movement of cattle, as well as of Hackamore Jocelyn.
Early in August, Jim Traft, acting solely upon his own judgment and responsibility, celebrated his fencing off the many heads of Sycamore Canyon from the brakes of the Cibeque, by posting notices that the Diamond would lay no further claim to stock in and north of Sycamore, and west of the drift fence.
It was a strategic move on Jim’s part. It caught the fancy of every cowboy in his outfit, excepting Jocelyn, who, nevertheless, was staggered by it. Jim had just wanted to be generous to the riders down in the brakes. He had authority to do what he thought best. What did a few herds of cattle, more or less, matter to his uncle? But a singular reaction to this proclamation was the effect upon his cowboys and the several homesteaders living in the proscribed limits. Jim won his cowboys by that act, and further alienated Jocelyn. The homesteaders called at his camp, unmistakably friendly and grateful. They all profited by it. One of them told Bud that he could now make a good start at ranching.
“He was stealin’ a few cattle right along,” vowed Bud. “An’ he admitted it. Any honest cattleman will admit he’s run a few haid not strictly his. … Doggone it, boys, Jim Traft has hit one plumb center.”
But so far as Jim was concerned this splendid news, which he knew would travel like wild-fire all over the range, was more than offset by Jocelyn’s talk. The shrewd cowboy had divined how his talk about West Fork and Molly Dunn hurt Jim, and after that he kept everlastingly at it at meal hours or round the camp fire. At first it was just conceited comments upon his girl and her attachment to him. Gradually, however, it developed into a vulgar parade of conquest, at which times Jim would make himself scarce. It threatened worse, and Jim vowed if he heard any more derogatory to Molly Dunn that he would force the issue with Jocelyn, come what might, and dismiss him from the Diamond.
In mid-August the drift fence, now up on the great triangular promontory, received its first backset from enemies. Half a dozen stretches, where it crossed the heads of Rocky Canyon, had been laid low, with wire cut and hopelessly tangled, and posts broken down. Two days of hard labor were required to repair the damage. Jim had his consolation in the slow anger of the cowboys. It frightened him, too, for he now saw indications of his uncle’s prophecy coming true.
“Boss, let me trail them hoss tracks,” begged Curly Prentiss. “I can find out in two days who cut our wire.”
“Suppose you do, Curly. What good will that do?”
“Wal, we can stop it from happenin’ ag’in. An’, Jim, shore as Gawd made little apples it will happen, onless we hit thet trail.”
“How do you propose to stop it?” queried Jim, aghast at the flashing-eyed cowboy.
“Thet’s fer you to say, after we ketch these hombres.”
“Well, let’s wait a little. A few miles of wire, a few days” extra work—what’s that to us? I’ll admit, though, if they keep on we’ll be up a stump.”
“Shore. We cain’t help matters by waitin’. Bud an’ I agree it’s thet Cibeque outfit, though we cain’t prove It.”
“Prentiss,” spoke up Jocelyn bitingly, “I reckon you know it’s onhealthy to speak names when you cain’t prove nothin’.”
“Hack, I can shore prove one thing damn pronto,” snapped Curly.
“An’ what’s thet?”
“I take offense at your speakin’ up fer the Cibeque.”
“Ahuh. But what does thet prove?”
“It proves you can git my game any minnit.”
“Wal, if thet’s so there ain’t any helluva rush. I’ve a date with my gurl, Molly, on Sunday, an’ I shore wouldn’t want to miss thet.”
“Aw, you’re a liar, Hack!” retorted Curly, passionately.
Jim got between the two, and by backing Curly away from the camp fire he prevented more trouble for the present.
“Boss, he makes me see red,” raved Curly, when they were alone. “I could uv stood his crack aboot the Cibeque, ’cause Bud an’ I don’t know shore who cut the fence. But he’s all the time throwin’ pore little Molly Dunn up to me. I liked her orful well, Jim. An’ I cain’t believe she’s thick with him. I cain’t. Mebbe she is. But I jest cain’t believe it. He’s a—liar!”
“Thick!” echoed Jim.
“Shore. He claims he’s thick with Molly. Haven’t you heahed him?”
“No. What do you mean by thick?”
“Wal, it’s pretty low-down fer a gurl as sweet an’ young as Molly.”
“But you— It might be true?”
“Hell yes. Thet’s what hurts so. Shore he’ll marry her sooner or later, if it’s true. Gurls like Molly don’t grow on all the bushes. An’ I reckon most uv the cowboys would take her if she was a d—little hussy. Bud swore he would.”
“How about you, Curly?” asked Jim, in strangely level voice.
“I would, too. In a minnit,” replied Curly, with his fair head lifting in a way to thrill Jim. “What chance has thet pore kid had? Her father’s no good. An’ they say her mother will cock her eye at a cowboy. An’ Slinger Dunn! He’d be enough to ruin any gurl.”
Jim made no immediate reply. He sat on his bed and pulled the petals off a tiny aster, which he had absentmindedly plucked. Twilight was stealing down through the forest, melancholy and tranquil. The heat of the day was dissipating. A bell on one of the hobbled horses tinkled musically. The vast forest sighed with a breath of breeze, moving down form the heights.
“Curly, I wish I were as much of a man as you are,” said Jim presently.
“Aw, boss, thet’s nonsense! You
shore are an’ more,” burst out Curly, nonplussed yet pleased. “It’s bin a drill fer you—this Diamond job. But the outfit’s with you. Honest, Jim, an’ heah’s my hand on it. We caint’ count Jocelyn. But to hell with him! He’s bin a disturber always, an’ he’s growed wuss. I reckon you’d better fire him pronto.”
“Curly, I couldn’t answer for my temper—if I faced him again tonight,” replied Jim, unsteadily. “Perhaps tomorrow or soon.”
“Jim, ain’t you takin’ this hombre too serious? After all, you’re boss of the Diamond. An’ who’s Hack Jocelyn?”
“It’s not who he is, but what he claims, that’s dug into me,” replied Jim, frankly, lifting his head.
“Claims! You mean aboot Molly?” asked Curly, incredulously.
“Yes. Only I take it harder than you, Curly.”
“Fust Bud, an’ then me, an’ now you! Aw! … Who’d ever thunk it? Thet black-eyed little devil.”
“Curly, I’d bet my life she’s decent,” declared Jim, with emotion.
“So would I. But it’s a long shot, an’ we’re takin’ odds!”
CHAPTER
14
THE day came when Jim Traft had his first look at the country from the rim of the Diamond. It was from the western promontory under which the Cibeque curled like a winding snake. The rest was endless green, relieved by bare spots and gray specks, which were the homesteads of the inhabitants. West Fork lay almost under the rim, a few cabins and fields, a gray line of road between some houses. Far to the south the dense forest began to lose its grip and showed bare grass flats and ridges. Westward the slopes ran up in long slants, like the ribs of a washboard, ending in a craggy mountain range.
Standing above the forest to look back through the wilderness he had built the drift fence, Jim gazed down over a gradual descent to the open cattle country, rolling and vast and dotted, ending in deep purple distance.
The splendid panorama transported Jim. He gazed long, and ever his eyes traveled back to the picturesque little homestead in the bend of the Cibeque, where he imagined Molly Dunn lived. He could see a log cabin, a ragged clearing in the woods, and tiny specks that must have been cattle or horses.
He lingered there a long while. This, his first sight of Arizona land from a lofty prospect, had staggered him with its vastness, its magnificence, its tremendous note of solitude and the wild. For weeks a subtle happiness in his surroundings had been almost imperceptibly stealing over Jim. He had grown to love the forest and life in the open. He could not hate this beautiful wilderness, because through it he had received the cruelest hurt he had ever suffered. And when at length he clambered over the rocks, up to a level and to his horse, he realized that Arizona had claimed him.
On the way back to camp, while riding across one of the grassy draws which headed on the western side of the Diamond, Jim found another placard nailed to a tree. It was identical with one Hackamore Jocelyn had brought in from the head of Sycamore, and its crude misspelled message read the same. This one, however, had a round black spot in the center. Upon tearing the placard loose Jim saw that the spot was a bullet hole. It stirred a curious heat in his veins. And he was reminded of Curly’s admonition, not to ride around alone through the forest. “To be honest aboot it, boss, I’m more afeared Hack Jocelyn will take a shot at you than one of these Cibeque hombres,” said Curly.
“Curly! I can’t believe that of Jocelyn,” expostulated Jim. “It’s not hard to believe it of Slinger Dunn. But one of my own men. No!”
“Wal, heah you are—the same old tenderfoot! You’re daid wrong, Jim. Jocelyn would do thet little thin’ if he had a chance. Mebbe it’s on his mind an’ thet’s why he hangs on heah. But Slinger Dunn would never shoot you or no other man in the back.”
“You rate Slinger Dunn above Jocelyn as a man?” queried Jim, in surprise.
“Lord! yes. An’ it’s hard to explain, boss. But you’ll get it some day. … Please take another hunch from me. An’ from this next camp we’re makin’ I’m advisin’ you to have one man whose job is to keep back off the fence line an’ watch.”
“That’s not a bad idea, Curly,” replied Jim. “You can take turns, one man a day. But it’ll slow us up.”
“Listen, Jim. This heah drift fence won’t be done this fall, an’ what with patchin’ it up an’ savin’ our hides, we’ll shore be next year on the job, an’ then some more.”
“Gosh! Curly, but you’re a pessimistic cuss.”
“Wal, I don’t know jest what thet is, but I reckon it’s a compliment.”
Next day Jim moved camp to Quaking Asp and inaugurated the scout duty for one man. It was hailed with satisfaction, except in the case of Jocelyn, who ridiculed it as another “new-fangled idee from Missourie.”
“That lets you out, Jocelyn,” retorted Jim, like a flash “I don’t know as I would have trusted you, anyhow, with a job so important as that.”
This was throwing down the gauntlet with a vengeance, and certainly against the advice of Curly and Bud.
“Mister Traft, you’re gettin’ mighty pert these days,” returned Jocelyn, the ugly expression changing his handsome face.
“Yes. I’m finding out what little good it does to be civil to some people.”
“Ahuh. Wal, your wise joke was more’n oncivil, I take it.”
“Jocelyn, you can take that crack of mine any way you like.”
“Shucks! We’re shore bustin’ out brave now.”
“Keeping my mouth shut in the past wasn’t proof I was afraid of you, Hack Jocelyn. I’ve politely invited you to fight—twice. Beware of the third time.”
Bud slouched in between the belligerents, sloe-eyed, and hard of face for him, but he did not speak.
“Shore,” drawled Jocelyn, with that peculiarly mean note. “I know you invited me to a fist fight. An’ I couldn’t take you on. My sweetheart won’t have me all bunged up.”
Jim felt the cold tightening of his skin, which heralded the receding of blood from his face. Either this crafty cowboy had guessed his secret or he had learned something from Molly Dunn. And in the passion of the moment Jim inclined to the latter suspicion. If he replied to Jocelyn, or even glanced at him, there would be no more possibility of restraint. Yet Jim quivered in his eagerness to get his hands on Jocelyn. Curly saved the situation for him.
“Hack, you ain’t showin’ much respect for our boss,” he said, and interposed his long frame before Jocelyn.
That worthy let out a guffaw. “It ain’t so long thet you did the same. Now you’re eatin’ out of his hand. Wal, Curly Prentiss, you lay to this. Heah’s one who’ll never do it.”
“Reckon none of us figgered you would. Hack, you may have the edge on me an’ Hump, an’ mebbe Lonestar, when it comes to years on the range. But we ain’t quite looney.”
This droll speech, delivered in apparent good humor, effectually silenced Jocelyn, who without more ado left the group.
“Boss, I’d reckon he’ll last heah till one more pay day,” ended Curly. But several of the boys, outspoken and less humorous, took issue with him on that score.
Another Saturday arrived, and at noonday, when the cowboys knocked off for the week, Jocelyn, with more than usual of his donning his best and gaudiest, made a parade of his start for West Fork.
Jeff Davis, the dumb cook, electrified Jim and prostrated the cowboys.
“I’m a quiet man an’ I like peace,” he began, in a perfectly clear and resonant voice. “Thet’s why I never talk. But that — — — a Jocelyn has got me riled. An’ if some of you — — cowpunchers don’t shet him up, I’ll slip some coyote poison in the — meat!”
Such profanity had never before been heard in the Diamond camp, at least since Jim had taken charge. The boys gave the cook wide-eyed and gaping stares, then after their usual manner when enraptured, they whooped like Indians and rolled on the ground. Upon partial recovery they delivered themselves with characteristic remarks.
“Our tongue-tied cook!”
“Dea
f an’ dumb! Haw! Haw!
“An’ mebbe he cain’t cuss!”
* * *
No other of the Diamond outfit left camp that weekend. They had a lazy, jolly time of it, interspersed with some thoughtful conferences about the obstacles ahead. Jim could not feel that they had accepted him as one of them yet, but they had changed so materially that their humor had lost its sting.
At Quaking Asp a stream of cold water ran down into the canyon, and half a mile below the rim there were pools full of fine trout. Bud took Jim fishing. Now it chanced that fishing had always been Jim’s favorite pastime, but he had never seen a rainbow trout. The tackle was not much, Bud averred; merely hooks and lines which he dug out of his kit. They cut poles and caught grasshoppers for bait. Jim had the most thrilling few hours of his Western experience, always putting aside those fatal hours with Molly Dunn. He caught a number of nice trout, and Bud caught a string as heavy as he wanted to pack uphill. When they arrived at camp with fresh fish for supper they were received with vociferous acclaim.
On Sunday they assayed to go again, and Curly begged to be taken. He was put to catching grasshoppers, and the spectacle of that long-legged, awkward-running cowboy, whooping wildly and batting grasshoppers with his huge sombrero, was something to see.
They had a great day on the brook, the climax of which was when Curly slipped off a rock and fell in to his neck.
It wanted an hour to sunset when they arrived in camp. To Jim’s amaze Hack Jocelyn had just ridden in and had kicked his chaps off. Jim’s quick eyes noted the cowboy’s gun belt hanging on the pommel of his saddle. The sight seemed to make every fiber in Jim leap. Jocelyn presented a marked contrast to the debonair braggart of a courtier who had left for West Fork only the day before. His garb looked as if he had slept in a hay-loft. His face was haggard, dark, and sullen. Not many hours past he had been under the influence of liquor.
If Jocelyn saw the approach of Jim and his companions, he gave no evidence of it, but went on in forceful harangue to Cherry Winters and Lonestar.
