The Hash Knife Outfit

by Zane Grey

  “Not on my account?” queried Gloriana, breathlessly.—“Oh, I hope not. I had all the slander and gossip I could stand—back home.”

  “Your name will never be heard of in connection with Darnell,” said Jim. “And fortunately he chased half a dozen girls more than Molly. He——”

  “The big liar!” interrupted Molly, disgustedly. “He swore I was the only one. … Aren’t men low-down, Glory?”

  “Some of them are assuredly,” agreed Gloriana. “But tell us, Jim. What happened? How did Curly do it?”

  Whereupon Jim, warning the girls not to tell Uncle Jim just yet, related the experience of the afternoon, punctuating the story with mention of his own thrills and fears. He wanted to do justice to Curly’s nerve—to that side of his character which seemed so incomprehensible to Gloriana. She was as horrified and fascinated as she was relieved.

  “This was no trick for Curly Prentiss,” went on Jim. “He had Darnell sized up. Knew he was a bluff, as well as a cheat. That there was not the slightest chance of a fight. And never will be so far as Darnell risking an even break.”

  “What’s that?” asked Gloriana, her eyes still large and full of wondering awe.

  “An even break is where two men go out, with intention to fight, and each has his chance to draw.”

  “Draw!—Draw what?” queried Gloriana, bewildered.

  “Gosh! how dumb you are, Glory. Do you think I mean to draw pictures on the side of a barn?—The draw means to pull, throw, jerk a gun.”

  “Oh, I see. … I guess I am very stupid. … Then you don’t think Curly will have one of those draws—even breaks with Darnell?”

  “Not a chance in the world. Curly says Darnell will come to the end of his rope pretty pronto—and that will be swinging from a cottonwood tree.”

  “Hanged!”

  “I reckon that was what Curly was driving at.—Glory, it shocks you terribly, I see. But please realize that Darnell has come to Arizona, first hounding a girl who happens to be my sister. Then he affiliates himself with a crooked cattleman—Bambridge. In Arizona, mind you! … Try to steel yourself to facts. The West is still raw, hard, sudden, bloody. It sickened me for months and even now I get a jar occasionally. But it’s grand with all its stings. You’ll find that out.”

  “I’m afraid I’m finding out a good deal already,” murmured Gloriana, still with that fixed look in her beautiful eyes. “And some of it is—maybe I’m not big enough for this West. … Well, I’ll go to bed and leave you to yourselves. … Good night, Molly, little Western sister. This Christmas Day has been a happy one, after all. ‘Quién sabe?’ as Curly says. Forget all the rest, Molly. … Good night, brother Jim. After all, you’re smiled upon by the gods.”

  After Gloriana had gone Molly whispered, dreamily: “She called me sister! … Oh, I adore her! … Jim, shore as beans she’s fallin’ in love with Curly. Only she doesn’t even dream of it. An’ Curly is ravin’ crazy aboot her. He’ll get drunk, Jim. Jest you wait an’ see. I know these heah cowboys. … An’ Bud—he’s as bad. An’ poor Slinger!—Lordy! what’s to become of us?”

  “Love is indeed a very destructive agent, my dear,” replied Jim, dreamily.

  “It darn near destroyed me, Mizzouri,” she said, plaintively. “Oh, Jim, it’ll shore do it yet—if you make me love you more an’ more.”

  “Well, sweetheart, if you want to know, I’m quite satisfied and happy now. And I’d rather not risk another of your demonstrations—if it were to take the form of another Ed Darnell.”

  “You’re makin’ fun of me now,” returned Molly, reproachfully, and then she slipped back into his arms. “I’m heah—for good.”

  Next morning the bunk-house was incredibly quiet when Jim knocked and stamped in. Jeff was cooking a lonely breakfast. “Outfit’s stampeded, Boss. I seen it comin’.”

  “Dog-gone their hides!” complained Jim. “Now I’m afraid to go downtown.”

  Before he started, however, he consulted his uncle and advised a postponement of Molly’s party until New Year’s Eve.

  “Fine idee,” agreed the rancher. “But don’t be hard on the boys, Jim. Remember that Diamond was the toughest outfit in Arizona. Lovable punchers, if I ever knew any, but sure blue hell on holidays. Better go downtown an’ drag them out. Reckon thet four-flush Sheriff Bray had his chance at us last night. Don’t tell the girls.”

  Jim had no intention of that, though so far as Molly was concerned she would know. He had a talk with Ring Locke and told him about the affair at Snell’s. The foreman seemed both vastly concerned and pleased. “Son-of-a-gun, thet Prentiss boy. … Jim, thet’ll settle Bambridge. He’ll have to shoot or git out. An’ he ain’t the shootin’ kind. All the same, I wish the Diamond was out of town.”

  Some of the cowboys might as well have been out of town, for all Jim could find of them. Jackson Way, of course, had gone to Winslow with his girl. Hump, Cherry, and Uphill had disappeared, after a bloodless and funny fight with some rival cowboys over a pool game. Lonestar Holliday was discovered lurching out of a cheap Mexican lodging-house, almost speechless, and certainly lost to a sense of direction. Jim bundled him into the buckboard. “Sit on him, Charley,” ordered Jim, “and take him home. Then hurry back.”

  Bud was in jail, and all Jim could find out, in the nature of offense, was a charge of disorderly conduct, including unusual profanity. Bray, the sheriff, was not to be found on the moment, and probably that was a good thing for all concerned. Bud was locked up with a tramp, two Mexicans, and a Navajo, and a madder cowboy Jim never had seen. “Boss, I’m gonna shoot thet— — ——coyote of a sheriff!” he asserted. Jim paid his fine and got him out, greatly relieved that it had been no worse.

  “Where’s Curly?” demanded Jim.

  “Shore haven’t the slightest idee. I reckoned he’d stay home on Christmas—considerin’.”

  “When’d you see him last?”

  “Yestiddy sometime, I think it was, but I ain’t shore. The last time I seen him was when he was helpin’ Miss Glory in the sleigh, after the dance. My Gawd! you’d took him fer the Prince of Wales.”

  “Then you went an’ got drunk?”

  “Must have, Boss, or suthin’ like. My haid feels sorta queer.”

  “Fine lot of cowboys!” ejaculated Jim, meaning the expression literally. He had lived long enough in the West to learn that such derelictions of the Diamond were now the exception instead of the rule, which had been the case before his uncle put the outfit in his charge. Bud, however, took the assertion as a calumny and proceeded to burst forth. “Boss, celebratin’ Christmas an’ Fourth of July are religus duties every cowpuncher holds sacred. An’ this hyar is the fust time the Diamond, all together, has busted out since last Fourth. You don’t appreciate us. We oughta get pulverized every Saturday night.”

  “I’d fire every last man jack of you,” averred Jim, stoutly.

  “Dog-gone-it! When you was a tenderfoot you had some human feelin’s. But now thet you’re a moss-backed Westerner—an’ turrible in love—you’re wuss’n a sky pilot. If I fell in love I’d do somethin’ won-n-derful.”

  “If you fell in love!—Why, you moon-eyed, dying-duck, tenor-singing lovesick calf—everybody knows what ails you,” declared Jim, dryly.

  “Hellyousay?” replied Bud, good-naturedly. “News to me. I’d like to know who she is. An’ say, Boss, I’m not tellin’ you what I’d do to anyone else for such disrespectful talk.”

  “Shut up, and think, if you’re capable of it. I’m worried. I want to find Curly.”

  But that was impossible. Jim went back to the ranch considerably concerned over Curly’s disappearance. Lonestar and Bud were back, and late that night Uphill came, so Ring Locke informed Jim. The next day and the next passed. On the third Hump and Cherry rolled in, more or less dilapidated. But no Curly! Jim discovered that he was not the only one who missed the drawling-voiced cowboy. Gloriana passed from coldness to disdain and then to pique, and from that to a curiosity which involved her own
state of mind as well as interest in Curly’s whereabouts.

  “Curly is a proud fellow,” observed Jim, for Gloriana’s benefit, though he directed the remark to his uncle. “Belongs to a fine old Southern family. Rich before the war. He has taken offense at something or other. Or else he’s just gone to the bad. I don’t know what the Diamond will do without him.”

  Later, Gloriana, with one of those rare flashes of her eyes, said to Jim: “Brother mine, your remarks were directed at me. Very well. The point is, not what the Diamond will do without Curly, but what I will.”

  “Glory!—What are you saying?” expostulated Jim, both thrilled and shocked. “It’s just pique. You don’t care a rap for Curly. But because he bucked against your imperious will your vanity is hurt.”

  “Some of your deductions are amazingly correct,” retorted Gloriana, satirically. “But you’re off on this one. And I’m afraid your prediction about my bucking up the Diamond must be reversed. If you were not blind you’d see that.”

  “Glory, hang on to this strange new sweet loving character you’ve developed, won’t you?”

  “I’ll hang on for dear life,” laughed Gloriana, finally won over.

  The last day of the old year dawned—the day of Molly’s party. The cowboys, excepting Bud, had given up ever expecting to see Curly Prentiss again, who, they claimed, had eloped. Bud, however, was mysterious. “You cain’t ever tell aboot thet son-of-a-gun. He’ll bob up, mebbe.”

  Jim was not sanguine, and felt deeply regretful. Had he unduly lectured Curly? But he could not see that he had, and he resigned himself to one of those inexplicable circumstances regarding cowboys which he had come to regard as inevitable.

  Jim’s small family were all in the living-room early that morning, planning games for the party, when there came a familiar slow step outside, and a knock on the door. Jim opened it.

  There stood Curly, rosy-cheeked as any girl, smiling and cool as ever.

  “Mawnin’, Boss,” he drawled.

  “How do, Curly! … Come in,” replied Jim, soberly. It was too sudden for him to be delighted.

  Curly sauntered in. He wore a new colored blouse, new blue jeans, and new high top boots, adorned with new spurs. He did not have on a coat or vest, the absence of which brought his worn gun-belt and gun into startling prominence.

  “Mawnin’, folks. I dropped in to wish you-all a happy New Year,” he drawled.

  Uncle Jim, Molly, and Gloriana all replied in unison. The old rancher’s face wreathed itself into smiles; Molly looked delighted; and Gloriana tranquil, aloof, with darkening eyes.

  “Where you been—old-timer?” queried Jim, coolly. Curly’s presence always steadied him, whether in amaze, anger, or indecision.

  “Wal, I took a little holiday trip to Albuquerque—to see a sweetheart of mine,” replied Curly. “Shore had fun. I wanted particular to brush up on dancin’. An’ my girl Nancy shore is a high stepper. I got some new steps now that’ll make Bud green.”

  “Albuquerque!” exclaimed Jim, beginning to realize this was Curly Prentiss.

  “Curly, I never heahed of no Albuquerque girl before,” said Molly, bluntly.

  “Molly, this was one I forgot to tell you aboot.”

  “Did you fetch her down for my party?”

  “No. I couldn’t very well. Nancy’s married an’ her husband’s a jealous old geezer. But I shore would have loved to fetch her.”

  It was the expression in Molly’s big dark eyes that gave Jim his clue. The cowboy did not live who could deceive Molly Dunn. Curly’s story was a monstrous fabrication to conceal his drunken spree. Yet how impossible to believe this clear-faced, clear-eyed cowboy had ever been drunk! Not the slightest trace of dissipation showed in Curly’s handsome fair face. He looked so innocent that it was an insult to suspect such a degrading thing. Suddenly Molly shrieked with mirth, which had the effect of almost startling the others.

  “Say, anythin’ funny aboot me?” queried Curly, mildly.

  “Oh, Curly Prentiss!—You’re so funny I—I could kiss you.”

  “Wal, come on. I’ve shore been in a particular kissable spell lately.”

  Gloriana was the quiet, wondering one of the group. She had been gullible enough to believe Curly’s story, and had no inkling from Molly’s mirth. Moreover, the growing light in her beautiful eyes gave the lie to cool indifference to Curly’s presence. She was too cool. Gloriana could never wholly hide her true feelings. That was part of the price she had to pay for those magnificent orbs of violet.

  “Molly,” put in Jim, “if you have an urge to kiss anybody, you can come to me. I won’t have you wasting kisses on this handsome, heartless cowboy. … Well, let’s get back to our plans for the party. … Curly, we’d be glad to have you sit in with us on this discussion—that is, of course, if you’re coming to the party.”

  “Wal, you shore flattered me, postponin’ Molly’s party once on my account,” he drawled, with a blue flash of eyes upon Gloriana. “An’ I wouldn’t want you to do thet again. I gave up the society of a wonderful damsel to come to this heah party.”

  “You dog-gone lovable fraud!” burst out Molly, unable longer to conceal her feelings.

  CHAPTER

  14

  IF ever a cowboy outfit needed to get out of town and back to hard food and hard work the Diamond was surely it—so said Ring Locke. By New Year’s they were a spoiled bunch. Bud went round looking for somebody to fight; Jackson Way got married on the sly and broke the outfit in more ways than one; Lonestar grew lonesome and sad, and swore he was pining for Texas; Uphill and Hump developed acute hysteria over some trick or joke which only they seemed to share; Cherry scoured the town for a girl; and Curly, according to united verdict, became a stargazing idiot. Nevertheless, they had daily uproars in the bunk-house, drove Jim and Molly nearly crazy with their pranks, and Gloriana to her wit’s end; and at the last, as if to make amends, they made Molly’s party a huge success.

  The day after New Year’s they rode forty miles ahead of the chuck-wagon, down out of the snow and cold, to the sunny cedared and piñoned forest. Back to saddle and chaps, to sour-dough biscuits and flapjacks, to chopping wood and smoky campfires—in a word—back to the range! And as if by magic they were all in a day the same old Diamond. Jim felt that he could burst with pride and affection. Where was there to be found another group like this? Yet that was only his personal opinion, for Uncle Jim and Locke had laughed at his conceit and told him of other noted Arizona outfits. “You get an outfit that sticks together for a spell—anywhere in Arizona—an’ you have the makin’s of another Diamond,” declared Locke.

  But Jim had his doubts. He took the Cibeque for example, and he shuddered in his boots. They, however, had been a rustling outfit. Jim gazed at the lean, quiet, youthful faces around the campfire, and he just gloried in the fact that he was one of them. Perhaps the dual characters of these boys were the secret of their fascination for him.

  Next camp they were in the pines, and once more Jim lay awake at night, listening to that mighty roar of the wind in the tree tops. It was a storm wind from the north, from the mountains, and it swelled and lulled, moaned and sighed its requiem. Sometimes it sounded like an army approaching on horses.

  And the fourth day they rode along their blazed trail, down into wild and beautiful Yellow Jacket. All the long way down that zigzag trail Jim whistled or stopped his horse at the turns to gaze down. Once he heard Bud remark, laconically: “My Gawd! it must be great to be in love like the boss. Jest soarin’. He’ll come down with a hell of a thump pronto.”

  Jim laughed at Bud, but a couple of hours later, when he gazed at a huge blackened, charred mass, all that remained of the wonderful peeled pine logs which had been cut to build his ranch-house, he did come down with a sickening thump.

  “Haw! Haw!—Reckon the Hash Knife has had a party, too,” yelled Bud, shrilly.

  “Croak Malloy’s compliments, Boss. See the latest cut in the aspen there,” added Curly, grimly, point
ing to the largest of the beautiful white-barked quaking-asps near at hand.

  Curly had sharp eyes. Jim dismounted and walked over to the tree. The crude, yet well-fashioned outline of a hash knife had been cut in the bark, and inside the blade was the letter M. Jim had seen enough of these hash-knife symbols to be familiar with it, but not before had he noticed the single letter. That was significant. It seemed to eliminate Jed Stone. In a sudden violent burst of temper Jim wheeled to his men and cursed as never before in his life.

  “Wal, Boss, thet’s shore fine,” drawled Curly.

  “Dog-gone! The boss is actooly riled,” observed Up, in delight.

  “Pard Jim, you aboot hit plum center, thet time,” cut in Slinger Dunn’s inimitable voice, something to make the nerves tingle.

  “Jim Traft, so help me Gawd, I’ve got an inspirashun,” chimed in Bud. “I’ll cut down thet aspen, split out thet section an’ dress it up fer Croak Malloy’s grave.”

  “Yippy—yip—yippee!” yelled some of the cowboys, in unison.

  Jim caught the infection of their grim and merry mood, but gave no further indication.

  “Boys, throw the packs. And three of you go back to the wagon for another load. The rest of us will pitch camp.”

  According to Slinger the tracks around the cabin site and pile of charred logs were old, and probably had been made the day after the Diamond rode home to Flagerstown before Christmas.

  “Which means the Hash Knife had a scout watching us,” asserted Jim, quickly.

  “Boss, you shore hit it on the haid,” remarked Curly, admiringly.

  “Dog-gone if he ain’t gettin’ bright,” agreed Bud.

  “Speaks kinda bad fer me, but I shore do think jest thet,” went on Slinger.

  “Slinger, all you could hope to do heah is to watch the trails down in the canyon,” said Curly. “Thet greaser of Jed Stone’s, the sheep-herder Sonora, has been keepin’ tab on us from the rim.”