Trail Dust

by Clarence E. Mulford

  “Why, that’s right kind of you, Babson! I’d ruther sell ’em than drive ’em home ag’in, if th’ price is right.” The trail boss scratched his head thoughtfully. “Looks like you’ve done earned yoreself a commission.”

  “I figure to get that out of you at draw poker tonight,” laughed Babson. He turned his horse toward town. “See you later.”

  “You shore will,” laughed Hopalong, watching the buyer ride off. The rattling of the wagon obtruded, and he looked around.

  “Whereat am I goin’?” yelled the cook, whose orders from Lanky had not been very specific. He waited impatiently while Hopalong told him, frowned a little at certain instructions concerning his own behavior, and rattled on again. Before he had gone a hundred yards he yielded to the tingle of his elation and burst into song: he wasn’t going into town, but he’d be right handy to it.

  Hopalong smiled and stirred. He looked thoughtfully at the dark mass moving slowly but steadily through the long dust cloud and pushed forward to join the herd. He hoped every last steer would have its feet off the ground before dark; but he was not unmindful of the hard work and trying difficulties ahead. Loading longhorn range cattle into cars was something to worry about. They just would rear and plunge, they just would get their legs through the openings between the slats of the cars; they would get their heads down and their horns under some other animal’s legs; and then they would raise their heads. Anything over the horns came up with them. For a man to go into the cars with them was plain suicide. Everything had to be done with poles, and the prodding started in the little loading pens, the prodders balanced on the narrow planks. Hopalong’s smile had faded, but when he reached the herd it was back in place again. Suddenly he laughed aloud: there was one thing spared them: they would not have to go along with this shipment—Babson had provided a crew for that!

  XXVIII

  The little fire gleamed in the darkness and shone on the faces of the three unlucky members of the Circle 4 trail outfit. The grouchy cook was sullenly regarding his two companions, bitter thoughts in his mind. Over the rolling prairie swells, scarcely a mile away, lay Bulltown and its noisy, turbulent night life. Close enough to the camp for it to be vaguely seen was the cavvy, close–herded tonight and kept near the camp on strict orders of the boss. The cavvy, for weeks valuable more for what service it rendered than for dollars and cents, was now valuable only for the latter. On previous trips they had driven the horse herd home with them; this year it would be sold, and they would ride home at a better pace and with sweeter tempers.

  “But there ain’t no sense to th’ three of us stayin’ here!” growled the cook, continuing his argument. “Hell, nobody would pester th’ camp or th’ cavvy. We’re in civilization, ain’t we?”

  Skinny laughed knowingly. He had drawn one of the shorter matches and thereby lost the chance of being among the first to visit town.

  “That’s just when you want to pin up yore pockets and keep yore eyes skinned,” he replied. “Th’ closer you are to town, th’ closer you are to a lot of thieves. Them hosses are worth money: more money up here than back home.”

  “Aw, it’s just my damn luck!” growled the cook. “I allus get th’ worst of it.”

  Skinny laughed again, this time derisively.

  “Huh! Here you been settin’ ’round camp all day, with nothin’ to do but work up one of yore reg’lar grouches, while we was puttin’ them damn steers into th’ little pens, an’ then into th’ damn cars! For a while I figgered them cars didn’t have no end to ’em. It was just one damn car after another. I fell off th’ boards once, skinned my back, an’ near got horned: an’ Billy fell off twice. An’ you set there yowlin’ an’ growlin’ about gettin’ th’ worst of it!”

  Billy chuckled.

  “I don’t know how fast I was goin’ when I was fallin’,” he said; “but I shore made right good time climbin’ up ag’in. Climbed so fast th’ last time that I skun my laig to hell an’ gone. Cattle are scared of a man when he’s on a hoss; but when he’s on foot they’re likely to get big idears. If you reckon them horns look big out on th’ open range, when yo’re straddlin’ a hoss, you just want to fall into a pen with twenty pair of them horns, an’ look up at ’em from th’ flat of yore back!”

  “Well, that’s yore own fault!” snapped the cook. “That’s what you get for comin’ up th’ trail. You joined on from yore own free will. Me, I’m all through trailin’ cattle!”

  “Yeah, just like all th’ rest of us,” chuckled Billy, yawning. “’Long about spring you’ll be gettin’ yore war bag packed up an’ go pokin’ all over th’ country lookin’ for a trail outfit to join up with.” He turned to Skinny. “I betcha Hoppy feels good with th’ herd off’n his hands an’ all that money in his pocket. You reckon he’s been paid yet?”

  “Don’t know,” answered Skinny, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “I’m goin’ to get shaved in style tomorrow an’ get my hair cut. It’ll cost me ten, twelve bits, but it’ll shore be worth it. Yeah,” he said in reply to Billy’s remark, “he’ll shore feel good about gettin’ shut of th’ herd, but I’ll betcha he’ll be near sick worryin’ about that money. Real money it is, twenty thousan’ dollars of it, an’ not no fool paper from some bank.”

  “Gawd!” exploded the cook, his eyes popping. “Twenty thousan’ dollars! Gawd! Twenty thousan’ dollars! He’s shore got to let me have a good look at that!”

  “Mebby he will,” chuckled Skinny, but his own private opinion was to the contrary. “Then, after you see all that money, an’ get a good look at a real en–jine, an’ not no picture of one, you’ll have somethin’ to talk about for th’ rest of yore ornery life.”

  “He don’t need steam en–jines or real money for that,” grunted Billy, who was due to take over the first trick with the cavvy and to take it over soon.

  “Hell you say!” snapped the indignant cook. Then he grinned and scratched his head. “Say, them fellers that drive them en–jines must be damn good hands, keepin’ a big thing like that plumb on them little rails. An’ I’ve heard they travel forty miles an hour! Don’t reckon mebby it’s so bad on th’ straightaway, but how th’ hell they keep ’em on th’ track on th’ turns is more’n I can understand.”

  “I’m glad there’s one thing you can’t understand, an’ glad I know what it is,” grunted Skinny, slowly and painfully getting to his feet. “I’ve had one hell of a day, an’ I’m near dead. I’m turnin’ in, an’ I aim to sleep right off th’ handle. You figger you can understand what I mean by that?”

  * * * * *

  A little group of tired riders stopped in front of the hotel and slowly, almost laboriously, swung down from the saddles and made the horses fast to the tie rail. They were sweat–covered, grimy with dust and dust paste. They had just come from the pens, where but a few minutes before they had put the last Circle 4 steer in the last car of the second section of the train, closed the sliding door, and gladly and gratefully turned the whole business over to the crew which Babson had hired to nurse the cattle in transit.

  Hopalong led them into the office, spoke shortly to the clerk, and then herded his companions before him into the washroom. A few minutes later they filed out again, looking and feeling much better for their ablutions, and went into the dining room. As the last man stepped into the room, the doors closed behind him. They had just made it.

  Babson sauntered into the office, dropped into a chair, and talked idly with the clerk until the opening door of the dining room revealed the trail boss and his friends.

  “Well,” said the buyer, standing up. As he spoke there sounded the forced–draft puffing of a locomotive, the squeal of flanges biting against the rails of the little curve leading to the main line track. “That sounds like you’ve seen the last of your cattle, Cassidy; or perhaps I should have said my cattle.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a folded paper.

  “Glad to get shut of ’em,” said Hopalong, grinning widely; but the grin died out: he was about to become
the custodian of twenty thousand dollars in real money which belonged to the best friend a man ever had; and he was still a long way from Buck Peters and the end of his responsibility, still a long way from home.

  “I’ll bet you are,” laughed Babson, handing over the paper. “Read that, and then sign it if it’s all right. The figures were copied from your own inspection papers.”

  It was a simple bill of sale transferring ownership of certain numbers of cattle in certain brands, under the Circle 4 road brand. Hopalong read it, took the pen the clerk handed him, scrawled his name, and gave the bill of sale back to Babson.

  “Now comes the interesting part of the ceremony,” chuckled the buyer, looking at the clerk. “Hope you haven’t lost the key to that safe, Charley.”

  Charley saw the trail boss nod swiftly to his companions, and smiled at the quick but seemingly unhurried movements of the men. Johnny Nelson stepped into the open front door and leaned against the casing, his right hand casually and lazily resting on the walnut handles of his gun; Lanky Smith was gravely observing the barroom from its wide doorway, and it seemed that his hand, too, was tired and needed support. Red leaned back against the desk, staring reflectively at the closed doors leading into the dining room; while Pete was all wrapped up in an ecstatic contemplation of a hideous chromo which hung on the wall and snugly against the casing of the side window. His hand, too, was on walnut.

  The clerk turned, bent down for a moment, and the door of the safe swung silently open. He stood up, turned to the desk, and shoved a packet of crisp green bills across the counter. There was no awe either in his face or gesture.

  “If you’ll count that, Mr. Babson, I’ll take back our receipt for it,” he said in a matter–of–fact voice.

  Hopalong glanced swiftly about the room, lifted his hand from the gun butt, and pressed solidly against the edge of the desk. Babson removed the string from the packet and then slowly, one by one, placed the notes in front of the trail boss, counting aloud. The lips of both Hopalong and the clerk were moving with the buyer’s, and when the last note dropped in front of him the trail boss nodded briskly and swiftly made a small, tight roll of the money. Deep down into a front trouser pocket it went, where it made no noticeable bulge. He commented upon this.

  “Right small bundle for so much money,” he said.

  “Yes: big bills,” replied Babson, sliding the hotel’s receipt over the counter toward the clerk. “You can change them right here if you want smaller ones.” He glanced at the clerk and nodded. “Thanks, Charley.”

  “’Twarn’t nothin’,” replied Charley and yawned.

  Hopalong glanced at the man behind the counter and decided that the clerk’s lack of interest in handling so large a sum was honest, and he felt surprised.

  “I’d–a figgered that you’d feel a lot better for gettin’ rid of it,” he said, smiling a little.

  “From now on to th’ end of this year’s drive,” said the clerk with a laugh, “that little roll of yourn won’t stack up no bigger than a tick would to a cow.” He grew expansive. “Bulltown is young, an’ it’s only a few buildin’s an’ a railroad sidin’ out on th’ prairies: last year there was about four hundred thousan’ head of cattle shipped from them pens; this year there’ll be more’n that. I wouldn’t be surprised if ten or twelve million dollars of cattle money changed hands in this town before snow flies.” He laughed again and waved his hand toward the barroom and Lanky Smith, who still stood guard despite the fact that the money was now out of sight. “I’ve seen poker games back there where thirty thousan’ dollars was won an’ lost at a sittin’; I’ve seen cattlemen lose trail herds at one session of poker: whole herds—two, three thousan’ head. An’ Abilene gets its name in th’ magazines!”

  Babson nodded and laughed gently. He knew the cow towns. He had known Ellsworth, Abilene, and Newton. His glance found the magazine in question.

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “But Mud Creek had something that you haven’t got here: it had Wild Bill Hickok. You ever see him?”

  “Hickok!” sneered the clerk, loyal to his own town and its denizens. It was such loyalty which caused the county–seat wars of Kansas. “Why, we got fellers in this town that’d make Hickok step on his own tail gettin’ out of their way!”

  “God bestows great gifts sometimes,” said the buyer quietly. “To Jenny Lind He gave a voice to thrill the world. To others, other things. To Hickok He gave speed of hand.” Babson was regarding the clerk curiously. He smiled placatingly, glanced around, and motioned toward the barroom and Lanky Smith.

  “But there’s no use of arguing where proof cannot be had,” he said. “What do you say if we leave Hickok stepping on his own tail and adjourn to the bar? A successful business transaction should be sealed as well as signed. I’m buying.”

  The watchful group looked toward their leader, who nodded: etiquette must be observed, come hell or high water; and he knew how to behave in town or anywhere else. He waved Babson ahead of him into the long room, his friends trailing along after him. They lined up, made known their wants, and were served just as a bearded gentleman pushed quietly away from the second window he had favored in the last ten minutes. Bulge or no bulge, he knew the secret of that pocket. Between the boards of the high fence which ran past the office window there were useful cracks, and a man needed to use only one eye to see what he had seen.

  Hopalong struck a match, touched it to the cigar he had taken, and blinked pleasantly. In turn he bought a round—and shoved the second cigar into a pocket. Knowing that none of his men had money, he gave them some—and straightway accumulated more cigars. The room seemed quiet and orderly. There was a game of poker going on, and several patrons were quietly reading. He decided that Bulltown’s reputation was grossly exaggerated and spoke of this to the buyer.

  “An unaccountable lull,” replied Babson. He laughed and glanced toward the ceiling. “Evidently the town’s still asleep. I remember the first night I spent here, last year. I had a room right above us. The next night I slept over the dining room. It was a miracle I wasn’t killed. There’s a tip for you, Cassidy: if ever you spend a night in town, sleep over a dining room or a kitchen. But the boys are quieter on this side of the tracks. You’ll find hell popping, right now, on the other side.”

  Hopalong grunted something and seemed to be restless. He felt that he would feel much better back in camp, where Buck’s twenty thousand would not make his pocket feel so damned swelled out. He felt that every man who glanced his way could see the outlines of the roll, small as he knew it to be. If it were his own money he wouldn’t worry about it. Again he shifted his feet.

  Babson read the signs and smiled knowingly.

  “You’ve had a hard day and must want to get some sleep,” he said; “but it’s only a short distance down to Frank Coggswell’s. What do you say about going down there now and seeing him about selling him your horse herd? I believe he’s waiting for you.”

  “He’s waitin’ for me?” demanded the trail boss in surprise. He had forgotten all about Coggswell and the damned cavvy.

  “I told him I’d bring you around as soon as you were through at the pens and had supper.”

  “Gosh! He’s been waitin’ some time, then.”

  “He won’t mind that: he lives in a room behind his office. You can get this done now and have the cavvy off your hands early in the morning.”

  “Well, all right,” replied Hopalong, smiling uncertainly. He looked at his friends, eager for a night’s entertainment in town after a long, hard grind on the trail. Digging down into a pocket, not the pocket, he pulled out a handful of gold coins and passed them around. “Here’s twenty dollars apiece on yore pay,” he said. “I’ll look in here on my way back, but you don’t have to wait: go where you please—but if yo’re smart you’ll put yore hosses in some stable. Hosses get stolen in this damn town.”

  Johnny gently juggled the two yellow coins on his open palm and looked eagerly at his friend and boss.

 
; “Figger I’ll go along with you, Hoppy,” he said, nervously important.

  Hopalong studied the keen face for an instant, reddened suddenly, and let pride have its sway.

  “You stay with th’ boys!” he snapped. “Come on, Babson.”

  “What’s th’ matter, bartender?” demanded Pete loudly. “Yore arm busted?” He slapped Lanky across the shoulders. “Let’s wake up this —— —— town! Let’s take ’er apart!”

  Lanky grinned at him and then suddenly became thoughtful. He leaned close to Pete’s ear and whispered a few words. Pete grunted something, nodded, and turned slowly toward the bartender.

  “Take it all back, friend: yore arm’s all right,” he said with a smile; “but right now I’m savin’ up my thirst for later on in th’ evenin’, when things begin to loosen up in this dead town.” He swung around toward Lanky and found that person gazing thoughtfully into the office. Long–headed old horse thief, Lanky was. Then he looked at Red and Johnny, busily talking at the far end of the bar. The Kid would only mess things up and act like a swollen coyote all the way home. Pete backed cautiously away from the bar, saw that neither Red nor Johnny was paying him any attention, and slipped quietly into the office after Lanky.

  Lanky was waiting for him on the little porch.

  “Whereat is this Coggswell’s place?” he asked.

  “Don’t know,” answered Pete, looking up and down the track. “There’s two places that’s got lights in ’em—one up this way, an’ one down th’ other.”

  “Yeah,” grunted Lanky. “We’ll save time if we split up. I’ll take th’ place up this way, an’ you take th’ one down there. Better not let Hoppy see us, neither: he’ll mebby figger we aim to pin diapers onto him, an’ mebby go on th’ prod. Anybody that gets that money will shore as hell earn it! Get goin’, you big ox.”