The Reckoning.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 10, 4 September 1912, Page 56

The Reckoning.

Dy

ROBERT LOUNSBURY BLACK.

GJ~T (BOSS the tawny flow of the / I Dakota prairie, whore the afterT~ I noon hent still shimmered, three A or four steens stalked in single file. Behind them flowed the- mass. of the herd, the line of swaying backs and their swinging tails dim in the brawn dust. Overtopping the rear, two cowboys swayed to the walk of their ponies. At intervals one or the other frightened a yearling back into the mass with a herding yell—“Ai — ee —o —o, Aaa—o, Yipce, ( how” —or, with a sweep of the arm and a sudden jerk backward, snapped a lagging steer with the thirty feet of rope that dragged from the saddle. The monotony of it grow unbearable, and at last the larger of the two herders —a young giant with ■extraordinarily long legs, and an evil face scarred across with a blow that had crushed liis nose —wheeled his horse towards his companion. As he loped past, he reached out a heavy hand to drag him from the saddle. The other, by contrast a mere boy. had no time to swerve his jaded pony from the attack. There was a staggering shock, but the boy clung clesperately to the saddle and righted himself. “Glue yourself on, Dickie. I'm a-corain’ again,” the man called, as he caromed off. ‘‘Hold yer horn an' lock yer spurs an’ stick to it if ye can.” lie enapjred the end of his rope into Ids hand, and, pulling out the noose, whirled it once around and threw. The coil unwound like a spring, the noose flying open at the end. It fell true Over the boy's shoulders, and even as it settled he was jerked out of his saddle. Yet almost before he seemed to have touched the ground he was up and free. lie wavered for a moment, stunned Then, without a word, he gathered up ithe reins of his horse and followed th® herd on foot. Down in his pocket his hand was gripping an opened knife— a dull Barlow, but with a blade long enough to reach the heart. “Get on yer bronco again, ye little buzzard,” yelled the man. “Well, then, don't. I'll sure drag ye next time,” He charged in once or twice again, swinging his rope, but a wandering eddy of cattle finally diverted his attention, and he was content thereafter io remain at his own side of the herd. The boy trudged morosely on through the dimt" dragging his reluctant pony. “I’ll kill him!” he muttered, still grip.piug hard on the knife. “I’il stick him an’ watch him bleed to death!” The last slow mile covered, the herd crowded together Ojii the cut-bank of a creek, find after one or two perverse efforts to break back or along it, splashed across, sucking noisily at the v a ter. “All over,” the big man called out. “llopie lo grub, kid?” Dick did not answer; he was sitting on the bank looking steadily over the prairie. “All right. Eat mud, if ye like —all you want! Nice rich mud’s good fer skinny k'uls.” lie turned off in the direction of the ranch. The boy lingered to chew the cud of liis wrongs, and, being a boy, found them of exceeding bitterness. The Chivalry of the cow-boy has been exploited in literature, but—perhaps because with the corning of the settler and the wire-fence, baser men sat the saddles of the heroes —this lonely orphan had suffered among rough men since he had been ten years old, with scarce a hand to succour him. Gradually, eased by the whispering of the soft wind in the prairie grass and the wonder of the sunset, the boy's fierce intensity relaxed, and be felt into the dull peace of the animal that has • Iwi-n driven too hard, but has, at last, ifoimd rest. Darkness had slijtped on him Is-fore he climbed into the saddle Then over th® flat a mile or so, up ths alkali barren of a coulee, white in the starlight, around a butte, ami thlights of (he ram-li house, with a lantern flashing about the corrals, swung into view. “Dog bite it," the boy muttered Arrived at the triable, he unsaddled his hqrsc and walked ovor the grub tent. Btip|M*r was eaten. Under the yellow light of a lantern the table Jay,

chaotic with dirty dishes and scraps of mangled food. The Hies slept in black clumps on the canvas walls. "No supper to-night,” bawled the cook from the bunk-house, .as he caught i glimpse of the drawn little face. ‘T can’t keep grub all night for you. A kid like you comes in with Hill, or he eats dead steer out on the range.” The boy went doggedly on to pick up what scraps of meat and bread he might find, lie lingered over them, too sick at heart to eat, but with a halteoaseious feeling of refuge. But even as there came over him a dread of the hostility awaiting him. he lashed his mind from its lethargy, hurried the last •m ninth fills, and drove himself ‘toward the bunk-house. Stepping over the rubbish that had piled up fanwise outside the door-sill, he looked in. The little log hut was packed close with rough beds, on each of which two figures sprawled luxnripusly among the dirty blankets- Most had taken of 'their chaps and boots, in deference to the proprieties, but others, of greater individuality, had not. The air reeked of men and tobacco-smoke. Hick looked first to his belongings. A little old saddle hung over his bed — a. third, fourth, or tenth-hand army saddle, worth perhaps eight dollars when new, which the boy had bought from Bill for twice that price. Under the dim light of the lantern this piece of property did not present its usual stringy, di.- bevelled appe.aaar.ee. He climbed over his bed, to look at it. Sinneon'e had cut oil the saddle-strings, wantonly outraging the unwritten law; for what the boy leaves beside hs lad shall be inviolate. The bitterness that hast seethed all day in Dick’s mind suddenly boiled out in words. •• Who done that? Dog bite it, who. dime that? Was .it you. Bill, you'coward. you dirty horse-thief? Hit a kid .in' cheat an’ steal when 1 hadn’t lookin’! Was it you done that? Or you. Frank? Or .you, Simp, to fix me for them five dolyou horned? Or you, yon stinking Dutchman, you ain’t none above this. Oh, damn the whole works—da.m» you—iliian you all!” The men lay in their beds in surly sili'i’ce. Then Bill leaped at him, suddenly, from belli nd. Tlie shock crushed the boy to the floor amid a shower of dirt sifting down from the sod roof. He lay limply under the man, without w.i.->'.ing strength in resistance—but with on. - baud he clawed at a st übbonrlyclos.'d knife in his pocket. Tim knife Hashed out. It was ins.i iri'Jy pinned down by Bill’s ’hand, but in that moment the boy had slipped from tin l.ir. Ho stood up. sna.rling, poised, an 1 leaped to drive the knife home. A well-aimed boot stopped him in midair. and a moment later someone snatched a revolver from Bill’s hand—or there had been a murder done. Dick awoke next day between white s ■ ets in the ranch-lhouse. During that twelve hours’ unconsciousness he had turned from a boy, who could be goaded in bo curses, into a man, who would kill without a word. Bill himself, being discharged by the “old man,” was relieved to get beyond arm’s reach of him. And thereafter Dick grew to know the world as more kindly, and in time all the bitti-rness of bis younger years v is gathered into the memory of a fanned face -with sandy hair and blue eyes, nnd with the nose crushed flat across, 11. The clashing brain of loaded stock cars cl in Iced away over the rails to the staccato puffing of the engine; the ‘‘old man” shouted his last instructions from the platform of the caboose; soon there was only a daub of smoke on the prairie horizon in the direction of South Saint D.iul, and Dick sighed peacefully at 'the eii.Ung of the day’s work. The town of Brand-New lay before I; m. It was 'then just three weeks old, and its oreator, the railroad, only two!; rl s st roots were still ribbed with tihe ■iiiiblde of the wlmatfield that had been; i<s fifty or more houses that wore to either ware moving in across tlie blank piairie or were still in a noisy process of 'aonat ruction; everywhere was the raw

unpacuted pine, and the tap. tap of hammers. But the town already boasted a soda-fountain and a “ blind pig"—North Dakota being, in its wisdom, prohibition. At any other .time, Dick would have chosen the milder dissipation, but th'is day, manking the end of the spring and summer’s work —this day of all the year was set apant to gather memoaies for long, dark hours of night-herding and lonely .rides.

As lie vaulted into bis saddle, a emitter, of hoofs thundered behind him, and the Doughie, Dick's chosen partner, tapped him on the shoulder, and flashed past. Instantly Dick was after him, his little cow-pony doubling and stretching under the siting of the quirt. With a wild chorus of yells, children and men scattering before them, they charged up to the stable, flung -off, and tied their horses. “Ohi!” said Dick in the Scandinavian dialect, as they rollicked ofl toward the blind pig, arm iii arm. “ Mane heft is full of yoyd ” Hut even as he was speaking, he stopped short. Before them a small boy sat huddled iin the hot dust, and nursed a (thin leg. At the sound of tlie dry sobbing, Dick’s face sobered, and he jerked his arm from, under the Donghgie's. ‘•Gee, Dickie, ’’ the deserted one remonstrated, “it takes ye for a lumpjawed steer to stampede when ye sees a bawling kid. Why, ye’d sfteal a calf from its maw an’ wet-nurse, it. Chow, ye son of-a-gun, chow out o’ that.” “Go ’way,” Dick answered, “an’ irrigate your dry spots. 1 got business with this here young maverick. You hit the trail from here pretty sudden.” He turned his back, and his friend departed indignantly. “Hi, kid, fleas been bitin’ you? l.e’s see now. No, no, 1 won’t hurt you irone.” The boy, surprised out of liis sobbing by attention from a tall cowboy in chaps and spurs, uncovered a raw bruise on his small brown leg. “Oh, golly, golly.” crooned Dick, “tihat’s sure bad. I reckon you must ha' let a steer take a kick at you?—Or now, slay, a. man done that ” “It ’uz Frank,” the boy broke out. “I ’uz jes’ stan’iu’ here, ’n he run across the road ’n’ kicked me. *N’ eee here,” he went on., encouraged by the show of sympathy. He pulled back the. cotton shirt from his meagre chest. “He done that, too, with the siheep-sheairs.” Diek looked at the long, hiaif-heialed soar where the blade had glanced along a rib, and his face hardened. “Hm—that, so!* he said. “Say, kid, d’yon ever drink softy? I got ten cents in my pecked. jest ydlin’ sody.” The boy scrambled up. his buri for the moment forgotten, and they went together to the drug-store. Over the drinks they grew intimate. “Who’s this bull that runs the her! — this here Frank?” Hick asked, confidentially. “Why. be uz been livin’ with my maw,” explained the boy. “He esne here from Mattenia with us.’ “Oil!” Dick knew wihat. it meant. He had gossiped wiith a passerby thirty miles out on the prairie of the arrival of this woman. “Golly, golly. kid. that makes e fit sure hard for you. Hut ye got to hear it; bear it a,n‘ buck. A bad bronco gives in after you devil him an hour or -so an’ makes a good horse. But once a man lets up, he liain’t never a man again. An' when you’re plumb played out an' fvour heart’s breakin’, you jest got to buck the hardest. Why, I knowe.il a kid one time, like you—a sure weak little kid—an’ they hurt him bad—but he never give in—no, by —■■—, li e weren't broke.” As sown as the boy had finished liis soda, Dick strode out, planning a more substantial fare. : “I hin’t grubbed none since last week, kid,” he said, plaintively, “d’ve plumb forgot what way to 'work my jaws. D’ye think ye could show me how?” “I hain’t had no breakfast either,” replied the boy, simply. < As they were going into the unroofed, one-room hotel, the Doughgie came run'll i ng up. “Still drink-shy," he called out humorously. “Has Sally's angel-child reformed his dear paw?” Then, drawing Dick aside, he whispered: “Ye told me once ’bout a man named Bill—ye remember—that red-haired bad man will) a busted nose. There's a big feller down io the pig, branded right—a cross-bar from bis eye clean to his jaw. Galls hisself Frank Wheeler, but I guess he's yer man Bill, all right.” Dick turned quietly to the boy and put a quarter in his hand.

“Here, kiddie, you go feed in the hotel. Eat good. I’ll come later,” he said. His eyes were shining. “Thank you kindly, Doughgie, for bringing me them glad tidings. I’ve waited—lemme see —eleven years for that son-of-a-gun. Sometimes 1 dreamed that 1 was a-shakin’ his hand. If I’d -come on him real sudden-like, the joy might ha’ hurt me some.” “He’s a bad man, Richard." The ]>oughgie was more sober. “Ye know •why he's kept away from this here c'ountry. 1 see a gun in his hind-pocket, an’ he’ll use it, all right, too. Lemme take a share in yer welcome to the stranger.” “Thanks, Doughgie,” said Dick, graciously. “But this is my round-up. Lopo around in ten minutes and watch me slaughter.” He walked off leisurely down the street —a notable figure, broad-shoul-dered, slender-hipped, with long muscles •that played and knotted as he moved. His back was very straight, and he smiled fearlessly at the world —“a strong man rejoicing to run a race.” At the blind pig a man was idling alone by the bar. Pick sauntered up beside him. “Have a drink,” lie said, with cordial Western abruptness. The fellow nodded sullenly, and muttered “Here's to friends” into his glass. As he drank, Dick looked at the blue eyes, the familiar sandy hair, and the crushed nose —and he knew his man. ' “Say,” he said, and shot his arm around the fellow’s waist. The big man started back, and Dick’s hand jerked free holding a revolver. This he held pointed carelessly at the great, hairy chest showing black against the open V of the shirt. With the other hand he swept his glass to the floor. “Say, you, 1 don’t drink with no hog. I’m Dick—Dick the kid at- the QuarterCircle Q Ranch—Richard Deming. You're my. friend Bill, that mauled and bullied and near broke me. Bill, l*m goiii' to lick you.” He opened the revolver,- snapped the cartridges out, and dropped it on the floor beside them. Bill's eyes shifted about the room. And then came chaos; the shack trembled; the flimsy bar crashed over on the bartender ‘with a tinkle of broken glass. The joyous Doughgie was swept from his feet as he entered, and crawled away bleeding from a chance blow. The fight boiled around and around the room. Suddenly Bill wrenched himself free and jumped through the door. Before he had gone ten strides Dick was on his back and had borne him down. The fine dust of the road flew up in a haze «t the. shock. Jn its midst arms and Tegs were whirling; from it came grunts and gurgles —once the harsh rasp of some one choking. The entire population of the town left their labours and ran in to see. The Doughgie, coming out, mingled among them, revolver in hand to insure fair play. Ten —twenty minutes they peered into the angry centre of the fight. .Slowly, with fitful spurts, it quieted, and a wandering breeze cleared the dust a’way. Bick was on top, his legs locked about Bill’s ■writhing body. One arm, swinging like a sledgehammer, beat the upturned face. Bill, with a fine effort, turned himself over to the protecting earth. Dick clung to him and ground the helpless head into the dust. At last the Doughgie, in fear lest Dick kill his man. pulled him off and to his feet. Dick staggered a moment, his eyes on the motionless body. • “I wouldn’t ha’ missed that for several,” tie said, quietly. “Take me home." Leaning on his friend's shoulder lie walked through the lane of the awestruck crowd. A dishevelled woman cursed horribly after him. “Whew,” said the crowd, at last, breaking a long, respectful silence. “Wluat the of a fight.” •Dick washed at the stable pump. “The last licks 1 put in fer the boy,” he said. “Say, Doughgie, >we got to rustle that kid out of these works.” The boy was ■waiting for him by the hotel; the whirlpool of the fight had riot dra'wn him with the others into its centre. “You hurt yourself’” he inquired. The Doughgie burst, into blasphemous rejoicing. “I just thought I’d wait till yon came,” the boy continued shyly. “You said you hadn’t grubbed, ’n* I think p'rliapa you wouldn’t mind my setting neat you.’ “Yow sure will —naw an’ conlinnoiM.” cried Dick. “Here, Doughgie, lemme make you acquainted with the Kid.”