“When I give the word, you advance,” directed the captain, “and begin firing at the third step. Empty your pistols, gentlemen, if one or another does not fall.”
The room was strangely quiet for a moment, as the two men stood facing each other. Then the hush was broken by the sound of the captain’s resonant voice.
“March—one—two—three!” he cried.
“Crack!”
Every neck craned forward at the sound of the shot. With a groan Kansas Kit fell to the floor. Jack drew himself up and turned to walk from the room, and as he did so three cheers rent the air.
“Bravo! Three cheers for Texas Jack,” cried a chorus of voices.
And so the name which the desperado had given to the cowboy in derision became a synonym for manhood and bravery.
While he was in Santa Fe Texas Jack ran across a Mexican named Mendoza, who was getting ready to make a trip into the mustang country. Listening to his interesting comments on the joys and profits of catching and taming the horses which ran wild upon the open range, Jack’s old ambition to become a ranchman returned. He determined to accompany the Mexican upon his expedition. One warm summer morning the pair set out. After some days of hard traveling, during which the Mexican acted as guide, they made camp near an old abandoned hacienda.
“I wonder what happened to the owner of that outfit?” Jack asked Mendoza one night as they sat around their camp fire.
The Mexican’s eyes seemed to burn with hatred as he answered. “That place is known as the haunted hacienda, señor,” be replied. “Didn’t you ever hear the story?”
“No,” Jack replied. “Shoot. Let’s hear all about it.”
“That place once belonged to a man named Lacey,” the Mexican said, “who married the most beautiful señorita in Mexico City. This girl was a great belle, and had many lovers among her own people and class. But she chose the American, and they came here to live in New Mexico. For a time all went well, and then one night the happy pair were murdered and the place sacked. The horrible deed was said to have been perpetrated by robbers of the Rio Grande, but the mystery was never solved. It never will be.”
“Haunted hacienda!” Jack said. “There’s nothing spooky about the place except that row of graves in the flower garden. In fact I’ve been thinking that since we’re having such good luck gathering in the bronchos it would make a darn sight better camp than this place. The walls over there are good and would form a final corral for the ponies. I’ve seen signs of Indians around lately, and I’m ready to move. Do you want to come along?”
The Mexican turned dark eyes full of anger upon Jack.
“You can’t go there,” he said shortly.
“You use strong words, Mendoza,” Omohundro replied evenly. “I’m no man’s slave. I go where I please.”
The Mexican seemed to recover himself, although his eyes still blazed.
“But the ghosts, señor—the spirits that walk at night.”
“I’m not afraid of spooks,” Texas Jack replied. “To-morrow is moving day for me.”
On the next day Omohundro took his bronchos and settled himself among the ruins of the old hacienda, leaving the Mexican alone. It was several nights after this that the cowboy was awakened by a noise. He was sleeping in a hammock slung out on the palacio of the deserted house, and raising his head he peered over the side in time to see a form moving around in the garden. Quickly and noiselessly Texas Jack slipped out of the hammock, arranging the blankets to look as if he were still slumbering there. Then he stationed himself in the shadows behind a massive pillar and waited.
In a few moments a dark form approached the palacio. An arm was raised. There was a flash and a sudden report. Then a voice murmured:
“I guess that fixes you, Señor Texas Jack. Maybe you won’t be so cocksure of yourself in the spirit world.”
Texas Jack recognized Mendoza and wondered what he was up to. The Mexican seemed to have his plans all made, however, for he turned without even satisfying himself that his bullet had gone home, and made for the garden. Watching from a distance Texas jack saw that he was busily digging among the graves.
Cautiously Omohundro approached the spot just in time to see the Mexican reach down into the grave and bring out a heavy box. This he opened, and the cowboy blinked at the sight of gold and jewels shimmering in the moonlight.
The Mexican was down on his knees by the open box, muttering crazily.
“Her jewels! Mine now!”
“Not as long as I’m alive,” Jack replied, pressing the cold muzzle of his revolver against the Mexican’s head.
Astonished, Mendoza turned a livid face toward the cowboy. Then he put his hands up to his head and screamed: “Señor! Señor! Are you a ghost?”
“Try to move and see,” Texas Jack replied. “What does this business mean, Mendoza? First you try to kill me while I’m sleeping. And now you are trying to get away with somebody’s buried treasure. How did you know that this stuff was here?”
The Mexican turned a sullen face toward Texas Jack. Then he seemed to change his mind, and his eyes glittered. “I buried the treasure here, señor,” he replied. “That’s why I guided you to this spot. Then when you moved I thought you had discovered the gold. But if you will keep the secret, I will share with you.”
Suddenly the cowboy understood the mystery. Mendoza had doubtless been one of the beautiful Spanish girl’s rejected lovers. When she married the American he had determined to have his revenge. So he had murdered them and burird the treasure in the grave. This expedition of his was only a ruse to get back to the spot under the protection of an American.
“It begins to look to me as if you were the murderer of Mr. and Mrs. Lacey,” Jack said. “Well, we’ll take a little trip to town, you and I and the bronchos and the treasure, and see what the regulators have to say about the matter.”
Several days later Texas Jack, his prisoner and a large herd of ponies turned up at a Texas settlement, where the Mexican was tried and justice meted out to him. Plans were made to trace the heirs of the Lacey hacienda, so that the treasure could be turned over to them And all the bronchos became Texas Jack’s property. So after all Jack Omohundro realized his great ambition. He started a ranch of his own and was known over the cow country as Texas Jack, the ranchero.
When the Civil War broke out Texas Jack threw in his lot with the Confederacy, serving with the reckless rangers of the Lone Star State. Toward the end of the struggle the cowboy made good use of his skill with the lariat, for the bony, half-wild steers of Texas were needed to supply food for the boys in gray. When the war was ended Texas Jack returned to the State of his adoption and was one of the cowboys who every year traveled the famous cattle trail.
This hazardous and long journey was an annual feature of the stock-raising business, for the Texas ranchmen had no market near at hand for their cattle. When the steers were ready for sale they were driven north along what became a regular route. This road, which somewhat changed its course with the years, also changed its name. In the southern latitudes it was known first as the Chisholm Trail, then as the Fort Griffin and Dodge City Trail. Later it was called the Northern Trail, and in the northwest the Texas Trail.
This procession of armed cowboys and plodding cattle was made up of numerous independent herds, each composed of anywhere from a few hundred to ten thousand steers. Through dust-colored miles to the ranges of Nebraska, Kansas, Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Oregon, and even British Columbia, they journeyed. There they were kept upon the range to be fattened.
When thus fed up the cattle moved on by rail to the abattoirs of Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City. The travelers on the Texas Trail headed for the nearest railway station. And at each halting spot a town sprang up. In fact this cattle trail was no narrow beaten track, but a wide zone along which the herders picked their way and
guided their charges, according to conditions of grass and water. At its southern end it was composed of countless little roads leading from each ranch in Texas. These paths finally merged into one broad route that, skirting the forbidden area of Indian territory, passed northward through the Texas Panhandle and then frazzled out into numerous divergent byways which kept on to every spot upon the northwest’s map.
Up this trail passed Texas Jack many times, proving himself equal to the battles and the hazards of the journey. After one of these trips he lingered a while in Dodge City, a border railroad town which was the market for the whole southwestern frontier and the rendezvous of the ranchmen. There he heard some stories of the doings of his old friend, Buffalo Bill, and determined to look up the famous scout and bison hunter. This he did. and as the government was always in need of skilled guides and scouts, Texas Jack served along with Colonel Cody in this capacity at Fort McPherson.
When Buffalo Bill turned from wild West scout to wild West actor, Texas Jack trailed along. In fact the famous cowboy from the Lone Star State was one of the star performers in Ned Buntline’s play, “The Scouts of the Plains.” Neither Buffalo Bill nor Texas Jack knew the first rule about things theatrical, and they were so terrified when they found out that they would have to memorize written lines that for a while the production seemed in danger. However they rallied to the occasion and made up in crack shooting the knowledge they lacked about acting. During this experience Texas Jack completely lost his heart to Mademoiselle Morlacchi, a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl who did a dance for a curtain raiser. Under the spell of love and the footlights the cowboy followed the fortunes of the road actor for several seasons.
Then the West began to call again, and he set out for Leadville, in Lake County, Colorado, a little to the north and west of the center of the State. This village was world-famed first as a gold mining town, and later as a great carbonate camp. In 1876 the heavy sand which the gulch miner so vehemently cursed for clogging up his sluice boxes was tested and found to be more valuable for silver and lead than the rapidly decreasing bulk of yellow metal. There was much local excitement, and prospecting for carbonate leads became the rage.
This new El Dorado quickly changed from an obscure mining camp ensconced between two lofty mountain ranges far beyond the railroad, to a city. The shanties and tents were replaced by houses, and the population grew from three hundred miners to six thousand residents in a year’s time.
To this town then Texas Jack came along in the eighties, still searching for the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. But before he could discover it or realize his dreams he was stricken with pneumonia, a common disease in that rarefied atmosphere. And here it was that in the spring of 1888 he crossed the Great Divide.
THE LAST MILE, by Frank Richardson Pierce
Seventy-Two hours before that McCurdy had leaped as the ice floes crushed the trading schooner—seventy-two hours without food, and alone, during which he had fought his way against a storm that threatened at times to lift him from his feet. He bent his head against the blast and frequently felt the sting as sleet and snow was driven into his eyes. The parka about his face was fringed with ice where the moisture of his breath was frozen. In one place the fur of the parka and his beard were frozen in a common mass. Somewhere ahead an Eskimo village lay half buried in the snow. To reach it meant life; to fail, death.
Only his wonderful courage and strength had enabled him to go this far, and now to conserve his fast-ebbing reserve power he must discard every excess pound. He fumbled with mitted hands beneath his parka a moment, then dropped a malemute pup into the snow. He tried to avert his gaze, but it was impossible. He was a playful, woolly, little fellow who looked upon all mankind with affection, but now he trembled from fear and cold as he had trembled when McCurdy had tossed him clear of the schooner three days before. The mute appeal, the frightened whimper reminded McCurdy of a baby. He knew he was reducing his own chances, but because his heart was big and he loved dogs, he suddenly picked the pup up and tucked it beneath his parka again.
“Poor little devil,” he muttered. “You don’t want to die out here alone any more than I do. We’ll sink or swim together.”
The movement of the pup beneath his parka filled him with a sense of companionship, despite the howling wind across the ice fields. When they died, and it couldn’t be long now, they would die together, the man and the pup. Death alone, without the comforting hand of a friend was bad enough, but with no living thing near, it was unbearable.
In the shelter of an ice hummock he rested an hour, then staggered on. Half dazed he recalled struggling over broken masses of ice piled high on shore from the weight of the pack; then a nightmare of falling and rising—the grim battle of a man who refused to die long after his physical powers were exhausted.
The last fall was a hard one, on a glare of ice. He sobbed in anger when his muscles refused to respond to his will; then a sigh escaped him—the gasping sigh of a mortal whose race is run. He felt the pup struggle beneath his parka as it shifted to a more comfortable position.
“Not alone, anyway,” he whispered as he felt the movement. A strange peace fell upon him, the touch of bitterness and resentment of youth when called too soon, vanished. As a whole, life, short as it was, had been sweet. He had loved his fellow men and been loved by them. In the States a sweetheart awaited his return, and there was a mother with silver hair who told her boy she never worried because he always played the game square and it was written that right triumphs. Then it was that a sob escaped him and he struggled a moment with limbs of lead before giving up.
“Soon now, Rajah,” he whispered to the pup, “soon now.” A majestic name for so small a pup, but McCurdy had visualized the dog grown when he named it.
A flurry of snow caught in the shelter of his body, then piled higher and higher until a mound of white covered all.
* * * *
Hours later McCurdy stirred uneasily. The bite of frosty air as he breathed was no longer apparent. Instead the atmosphere was heavy with the odor of human bodies and smoke. His veins were afire, the pain of returning circulation was excruciating. Many hands were rubbing and slapping his body. A ring of round, serious faces smiled as he slowly opened his eyes.
He lay naked on a pile of walrus hides, and for several moments he was content to remain quiet and try to comprehend. “The pup?” he queried at length.
Somewhere a voice in fair native school English answered: “The White Chief’s dogs found you. He brought you here!”
A pair of hands held the squirming Rajah up for inspection. McCurdy smiled his thanks. Later they left, and the White Chief appeared. McCurdy had heard of the Eskimo who so resembled a white man that both natives and whites called him the White Chief. Now he entered and removed his parka, disclosing a white beard and white curly hair that fell below his shoulders. He was a patriarch worthy of an artist’s brush. His eyes were kindly, the forehead broad, his manner that of one who frequently ponders deeply, then judges wisely. There was a suggestion, when he spoke, of the poetic note one sometimes find in aboriginal dialects.
“My son, you are feeling better!”
“Decidedly, but for this accursed burning,” replied McCurdy. Then he brought himself to ask the dreaded question uppermost in his mind: “Will I lose fingers or toes from frost bite?”
“Not even the tip o’ an ear,” was the reassuring reply.
McCurdy drifted into sleep to be awakened by the pup—whose stomach was now fat with seal meat—dabbing his face affectionately with his tongue. He had come through it all at the mere cost of four days’ fasting.
“You little cuss!” exclaimed McCurdy, sitting up. “You’ve paid for yourself already—the Chief’s old lead dog sniffed you out and found me, too. You’ll live to be your father’s son yet. We owe the Chief a debt, and together we’ll have to pay it.”
He was there
for the winter, he knew; and food, precious at all times in the Arctic, would be shared with him as freely as though he had helped secure it. The Chief indicated that the white man and his dog were to share his quarters.
There was a dash of romance in McCurdy, for otherwise he would not have taken the heart of one of Seattle’s prettiest girls by storm, forced her to capitulate unconditionally, then promptly risked his all in one bold stroke—an Arctic trading expedition. He had lost his money and nearly his life, but he knew the girl would remain steadfast.
It was the same streak of romance that caused him to ponder by the hour on the strange white man who ruled these people so justly, who was native in every thought and action—white only in blood. Yet curious as he was he never mentioned the subject lest he intrude. “Old-timer,” McCurdy called him to himself; then one day it slipped out by chance. The Chief smiled in a way that tugged at McCurdy’s heartstrings, and his eyes dimmed slightly.
“My son, you like me?”
“Darn your old skin,” said McCurdy, “who could help it? Square, kind, such a regular fellow that I can’t—” He choked it back.
“You are curious, I know,” answered the other. “You can’t understand what I, a white man, am doing up here away from my kind. I have read it in your face many times. Strong in body, yet you are gentle in manner; not rough as some who stray within our village from the great land of sunshine and warmth. Harken, my son, back nearly seventy years. A wrecked whaler, a helpless child of two years adrift with three dying men; an omiak filled with natives who took the child to their village; shared their food; cared for him, when helpless, taught him the ways of securing food in the Arctic—made him one of them. Perhaps my white brain reminded, me of my great debt to them, perhaps the native viewpoint, a sense of loyalty that made me remain and. repay as well as I could; perhaps because I knew of no other life. Only once have I wavered in my duty; that was when I was sent to the school and taught to read and write. The white blood in my veins stirred almost beyond my strength, urging me to break away and see the world, to live amid my kind.
The Third Western Megapack Page 50
