The Long Dim Trail
"Well, you did the right thing in coming to me," announced Dunning, as he finished manipulating the concoction. "That white hair did make you look old, Walton, and I often wondered why you didn't touch it up a bit. I bet when I get you fixed up, that she won't ask how old you are. Say, I'll stake ten dollars on that bet."
"Will it stay black, or have to be done over again?"
"Guaranteed permanent. Only way to remove or change the colour after it is once on, is keep the hair shaved close to the roots for six months."
Walton twisted nervously. "I wish you'd draw down that shade and lock the door. I don't want any one hanging around while you are busy."
"That's what I figured on doing," agreed the barber, acting as he spoke; but winking at the boys of the Diamond H who were sauntering past as the shade was lowered.
Walton sank back with a sigh of relief. The silence of the dimly lighted room and the movement of the barber's hands, had a soporific effect on the customer, who closed his eyes and snored peacefully, while Dunning kept a wary eye on the clock until he heard the whistle of the approaching train from the East.
"Better hurry, Walton! Train's pretty near the depot, now. I just got done in time."
Walton waked with a start as the sheet was jerked off, and Dunning's voice sounded jubilantly in his ears, "Job's done fine. I'm proud of you!"
With a hasty glance at the small mirror in the dimly-lighted room, Walton's blinking eyes saw a dark flowing beard, a mass of dark hair. The noise of the train warned that time was precious and fleeting. Thrusting the three dollars into Dunning's palm, he grabbed his hat and ran across the street to the depot, where the train was puffing to a stop.
Walton scanned the rows of windows with passengers looking aimlessly at the town. Their bored faces suddenly became animated with smiles. Walton found the tourist sleeper, where he saw a girl in a grey suit on the platform of the car descend the steps, while the porter helped a delicate-looking boy.
The bridegroom-elect moved more swiftly, and reached the girl just as the porter shook hands with the child and said, "You'll be a big cowboy before long, Ah reckon;" then the train went on its way, leaving the girl looking about nervously.
Among the loiterers at the depot, Bronco, Holy and Roarer glanced at each other in consternation.
"Good Lord!" "Holy, that ain't the girl, is it?"
Holy did not answer. The enjoyable flavour of the joke had evaporated, like a dose of castor oil in orange-juice, and a decidedly disagreeable taste remained. Holy acknowledged to himself only, that his preconceived idea of the picture as a fake, sent to old man Walton by an unattractive, elderly woman, was without any foundation. This girl was much prettier than the photograph. Any doubt as to the identity was dispelled when Walton sallied up to the girl and took off his hat with an elaborate flourish.
She started back, her frightened eyes travelling slowly over Walton's hair and beard. Meeting that prolonged glance, he attributed it to his fascinating appearance, and smirked and preened consciously.
"I'm Montgomery Walton," he said unctuously. "Everything is arranged so we can be married without delay and get out to the ranch tonight. The Justice of Peace is waiting for us."
The girl's pretty colour faded suddenly as she saw him pick up her valise with an air of proprietorship. She looked at the child, took a step toward Walton – stopped, then cried out, "No! No! I can't do it!"
Walton scowled, but controlled himself and said, "You are tired from your long trip just now, I know. It won't take long to get started for the ranch after we are married."
He beamed on the child, "Come along, Sonny."
The boy shrank back, clung to the girl, who clutched the thin little hand and looked about her desperately. Her eyes swept over strange faces, rough-looking men, then, like an animal at bay, she ran to the waiting-room with the child, and slammed the door violently. Walton stared at the closed door, then at the valise in his hand.
The listeners outside heard hysterical sobs, and the soothing voice of Mrs. Green, the agent's wife. Walton, pale with rage, glared at the grinning faces about him, drew himself up, entered the waiting-room and closed the door behind him with a bang. The mingled sounds of a girl's sobs, a woman's angry tones, Walton's voice in çrescendo notes, then the door opened and he dashed out, scattering those who obstructed his wildly waving arms, and stopping at the door of Dunning's shop. It was closed. A notice hung on the door. "OUT OF TOWN."
Walton hurried to the bar-room of the Willcox Hotel. His face was aflame with rage; the hand he rested on the bar was shaking as though with palsy. The occupants of the room grinned at him.
"Them the latest style in whiskers?" joked the bartender, winking at another man.
"Mind your own affairs and give me a glass," ordered Walton.
Purposely misunderstanding him, the barkeeper held out a glass of liquor and said, "You seem a leetle nervous, Walton."
The glass was struck to the counter. Walton screamed in maniacal fury, "A looking-glass is what I want, you doggone idiot! I want to gaze on my 'seraphic countenance' that seems to paralyze everybody. Look like the 'green fields of Virginia,' do I? 'Rent me out during a drouth,' will they? Where's a glass?"
"Keep calm, Walton, here's one;" the bartender handed out a small mirror.
Silently Walton gazed at hair and beard of vivid emerald green. The venomous glitter of his eyes was like that of an angry rattlesnake. He laid the glass down and spoke with a voice that was quiet, but deadly.
"Some one put Dunning up to this, and I'll find out who it was, before I get through." He flung out of the place and the men in the room glanced at one another. They knew that some day, somebody would pay. Walton was a man whose debts of personal animus, never outlawed by time, were sure to be settled in full with compound interest.
CHAPTER NINE
"The boys don't mean no harm, but it jest seems they can't come to town without things happenin' when they mix in," Limber had said when he parted from Powell.
The cowpuncher went to the corral, mounted his pony and rode down the railroad track to the shipping pens. The cattle were in good shape, gates fastened securely. No matter what the short-comings of the boys of the Diamond H, they never slighted any detail of the work; but Limber felt the responsibility of it all.
When Peanut was properly cared for, his master ambled carelessly along the street until he reached the swinging doors of the bar-room of the Willcox Hotel.
"Any of my outfit here?" he asked the man behind the bar. "I jest got in from Hot Springs with Doctor Powell."
A number of men in the place called to him, others came nearer Limber and held out hands, and he was the centre of a small group when he uttered his next words.
"The Apaches killed ol' Doctor King last night in the Hot Springs Cañon below the Circle Cross. We jest brung in his body for the Coroner."
Exclamations of sincere regret were voiced by his hearers, for each of them could recall little acts of kindliness to himself or to some one he knew. Limber was plied with questions, and gave the meagre details, but he did not speak of the narrow escape of Mrs. Glendon and her child.
Comments were interrupted as the doors swung back once more. Bronco, Holy and Roarer stood bunched together and surveyed the assemblage with brooding eyes. Then, they saw Limber. Their solemn countenances lightened, and Bronco grasped the foreman's arm, leading him to a table at the rear of the room, where they all slumped into chairs. Limber studied each face.
"Well, what have you done this time?" he asked in a resigned voice.
"Say, Limber, we're in a hell of a mess," confessed Bronco abjectly. The other two punchers confirmed the assertion by silence. "We was waitin' for you to get us straightened out, someway."
Limber made no comment until the situation had been fully explained, but his eyes were anxious and his lips harboured no smile.
"It ain't a question now of how we got into it," he finally said, assuming the onus of the episode with the culprits, as a matter of course.
They had slept side by side in their blankets, bunkhouse and range; had shared chuck and tobacco, storms and fair weather, and, if necessary, each would have used his last cartridge in defense of the others. "The wust of it was that we all promised the Boss not to stir up trouble this time. It's all right about Walton; he don't count in this deal, but it's damn tough on the woman. I don't know what to do about it."
"Gosh! Limber, we've got to fix it up – someway," Bronco's tones were desperate. "If we don't, the whole bunch of women in this yer town will be on the war-path after our scalps, and the Diamond H outfit will be huntin' new ranges. You kin lick a man if he gits fresh and sassy, but when a petticoat goes on the rampage, the only thing a feller kin do is cut and run."
"It's because a woman is mixed in it that I'm bothered," Limber went on. "You boys know the Boss will stand for pretty near anythin', so long's thar ain't women in it. He's been pretty plain about that, and it's the one thing he'll fire the whole bunch for. It's the worst mix-up we ever got into."
The foreman looked at the floor, and the other men looked at him. Limber knew he must either tell the truth and clear himself in the eyes of Traynor, or remain silent and take the blame with the others; even though this might mean losing his job as foreman of the Diamond H. His admiration for Traynor was deep and sincere. It hurt to lose Traynor's faith in him.
"We're sure all down and out," Holy's voice was lugubrious, and he let the cigarette he had made, fall unlighted on the table.
"I jest felt that if you were turned loose on the range today that you would stampede. I didn't figure you'd get here so quick with the cattle, and, the trouble about King kept me back. I wisht I'd got here sooner, so's to round you up before any damage was done. What started you, anyway, Holy?"
"I thought it was a fake picter Walton showed me, until I seen the woman get off'n the train," responded Holy feebly. "Thar's a Kid, too. 'Bout five or six years old. Kinder peaked and sickly and scarey."
A long, low whistle was Limber's only comment on this additional complication.
"She looks young to have a Kid that big," Bronco put in, "But, then you can't look inter a woman's mouth to tell her age, like it was a horse."
Limber's meditations covered many moments, but neither Bronco, Roarer nor Holy interrupted his thoughts. At last he looked up, and they leaned across the table hopefully.
"Thar don't seem anythin' to do exceptin' ask Mrs. Green to help us figure it out," was his decision.
"Gee! That's just the medicine!" agreed the rest with alacrity, nodding at each other in happy approval. "You kin sure fix it up with her, Limber," was Holy's verdict. Limber's grey eyes were sombre as he contemplated the relieved faces.
"Yep!" he said positively, rising as he spoke, "It's the only thing to do. Come along."
Consternation eclipsed the smiles; none of them got up from their chairs. Limber looked at them, then said, "Come along."
Slowly the chairs were pushed back with a loud rasping noise; slowly the sombreros were transferred from wooden pegs above the table to the heads of the three cowpunchers; slowly the spurred feet moved toward the door, passed draggingly through it, and trailed meekly behind Limber until he reached the rooms above the depot, occupied by the Agent and his wife. Limber knocked. The cowboys' hearts were thumping more loudly than Limber's knuckles, it seemed to them.
The door opened, they did not look up, but the feminine voice that bade them enter, sounded ominous. With eyes still downcast, and hats in hands, they followed Limber's heels. They saw nothing else in that room except the rugs on the floor. Then Limber's voice broke the deadly silence.
"The boys say they've got into more trouble on the range, Mrs. Green," Limber said soberly.
"I should say they have," she retorted vehemently. "They ought to be ashamed of themselves, putting a woman in such a position in a strange place! Making her the laughing stock of the whole country! She's been crying her eyes out, ever since she got here. And, you almost frightened the boy to death with your idiot ideas of fun! It takes a big brain to do those things!" she paused breathlessly to look at them with flashing eyes.
Not one of the Diamond H boys would have hesitated at any danger, but now, their one desire was to scurry ignominiously down stairs and hit the home trail without delay. They cast longing eyes at the door that led to freedom and safety. It was closed. Between them and it stood an angry woman.
"We came to you because we all are stampeded, Mrs. Green," pleaded Limber, and the men, hearing the incriminating pronoun, swore allegiance to Limber for the rest of their lives. "Can't you get us headed right, somehow?"
Mollified, she answered, "What had you thought of doing?"
No one had thought of anything, but they were all loathe to admit it, so each one cudgelled his brains vigorously.
"Say, so long as we busted up the weddin'," gasped Bronco, "we'll chip in and refund her fare – ship her back in a box car – I mean – pay her way to whar she come from. Won't we, boys?"
"Sure!" was the chorus.
Now that the ice had been broken, the situation was less strained.
"Derned – hanged – ! Oh, say, Mrs. Green! We'll do any damned thing you say, to put an end to this yer doggone millin';" floundered Holy, struggling to be intelligible without profanity. "We never figgered it would buffalo no one but ol' Walton, and to Hell – Oh, shucks! I mean he don't count noways!"
Holy paused and wiped his perspiring face with a red cotton handkerchief that was not more vivid than his own complexion. His effort had been heroic. Mrs. Green recognized it, and her smile refused to be suppressed longer. A dimple sneaked into her cheek. The boys breathed more freely. Dimples didn't frighten them very badly, unless one of them was alone with it.
"Sit down," suggested Mrs. Green, "and let's talk it over together. Maybe we can work out the trouble." Roarer, Bronco and Holy deposited themselves cautiously on edges of chairs, their huge hands hanging pathetically helpless between their leather-clad knees. Their hats decorated the floor and they were conscious of tousled heads.
"You see it all came through the child being delicate. Lung trouble, the doctor said, and Arizona the only hope."
"He sure does look peaked," Bronco hastened to agree. If Mrs. Green had said the King of England was hiding in the kitchen pantry at that moment, Bronco would have backed that statement with his very life.
"Her folks are all dead," continued the Agent's wife, "and she has been supporting the child. It took all the money she had saved, to get here."
"That's tough luck," commented Roarer with a squeak of emotion. Then startled at the sound of his own voice, he subsided.
"She has got to stay in Arizona on account of the child's health," Mrs. Green explained. "Walton answered her advertisement asking for a place where she could work in return for board for herself and the child. Nobody else answered her. Then he proposed marriage, and she agreed. She says the boy means more to her than her own life."
"Well, if she wants to marry Walton," Limber volunteered, "we'll rope him and get her brand on him before you can wink, and you tell her so for us. But, I don't know but we'd be handin' her a worse deal than the fust time."
"I told her what kind of a man he was. She never wants to see him again." Mrs. Green's voice was sharp, hope seemed to die in the breasts of the four men.
"Well," Roarer's tones rose shrilly in his excitement and nervousness, "Do you think any of us'd do in place of ol' Walton? Seems to be up to one of us to make good. Of course, Limber ain't in on this deal; but the rest of us is, ain't we, boys?"
Weakly the rest assented. With deliberate cruelty Mrs. Green critically surveyed each candidate for matrimonial honours. Her eyes roved slowly from their heads to their boots, while their ears grew red, feet shuffled uneasily and mouths were compressed grimly. Cost what it might, the boys of the Diamond H were going to see the trouble straightened out. The clock measured two minutes, but it seemed two hours to those under inspection.
"I don't believe that would be the remedy," she concluded. The men sighed with unconcealed relief, and each registered a vow to get even with Roarer later on. It had been a close shave. The agony would never be forgotten.
"I think she had better stay with me until she finds work," offered the Agent's wife. "She can help me about the place, and I've got some sewing I want to finish up. Then, you know, I have to help Jack a good bit down in the office. Meantime, she could be prospecting for a place that would suit her. She understands house-keeping, cooking and has been employed in office work. So it won't be long before some one will snap her up, out here."
Limber nodded and said gratefully, "We sure are much obliged to you, Mrs. Green," then his hand was thrust into a hip pocket. Had Mrs. Green been a man, she might have been alarmed at the movement, but the hand came out clutching crumpled greenbacks. "It's up to the Diamond H outfit to look out for her till she gets on her feet good and square, and we'll sure be proud to do it."
With hasty awkwardness Holy, Roarer and Bronco added to the donation Limber laid on the table, glad there was something at last that could be done.
"I'm sure we can get things straightened out before long, some way, and I'll do all I can to help her and you, too;" promised the woman.
"I'll talk it over with the Boss when we get home," suggested Limber.
The other men looked at him quickly, but after they said "good-bye" to Mrs. Green, Limber parted from them. They sat side by side on a wooden, backless bench in front of the Willcox Hotel, and discussed the situation with its new angles.
"Limber ain't to blame, and we're goin' to let the Boss know it, too – and then we'll take our medicine like little men," was Bronco's ultimatum, which was endorsed by Holy and Roarer; but their hearts were heavy at the prospect of being "fired" by the Boss of the Diamond H. No other ranch, or Boss, or foreman would ever be the same to them.
CHAPTER TEN
Limber started the boys to the ranch at dawn, to make sure they would be safe while he and Doctor Powell attended the inquest over King's body.
Holy, Bronco and Roarer reached the Diamond H without adventure, and after caring for their ponies, grouped in the office at the end of the court-yard, waiting Traynor's advent.
One comprehensive glance told him that something had happened. "Trouble" was written in capital letters across each face. The Boss seated himself at his desk, looked up and said, "What's the matter, boys? Been fined for shooting up the town again?"
"Gee! I wisht it was that," groaned Bronco, as he dropped astride a chair with his arms draped over the back.
"Any of you killed any one?" the voice was more serious now.
"Nope! It's our funeral this time," squeaked Roarer's falsetto.
Traynor twisted about and looked apprehensively at them all. "Great guns! You haven't all gone and gotten married, have you?"
"It's worser'n that," Holy's sepulchral accents boomed, "This yer damn fool outfit has been an' busted up a weddin'! That's all we done this time!"
The worst was over. The men relaxed and waited the effect of their news.
"Well, go ahead. Tell the rest," ordered Traynor curtly, with knit eyebrows.
Interspersed with interruptions, interjections and gestures, the three managed to acquaint the Boss with the situation. When their story ended, he said very sternly, "You boys know that I am always ready to stand by you, but I gave you all fair warning when I hired you, that if you got into any trouble or mix-up with a woman, it would mean your time. I certainly never anticipated such a scrape as this. I'm disgusted with you all!"
"We knowed that before you said it," Bronco agreed meekly, "but what we want to make plain is – we don't want Limber to get any blame for what we done. He wasn't in town when we busted loose. But Limber's liable to tell you jest as if he was right thar hisself."
"You say the woman is looking for ranch work?"
"That's what Mrs. Green told us," was Bronco's reply, reinforced by nods from the other two men. "Says she can cook an' keep house and sew an' work in a orfice, an' Mrs. Green says she can stay thar until they find work for her, somewhars."
Traynor sat looking thoughtfully at the paper-knife he held in his hand. The eyes of the cowpunchers also stared at the paper-knife, as though hoping it would solve their problem. The knife dropped on the desk and Traynor looked up.
"I'll write to Mrs. Green and tell her that if the woman wants to bring her child and come here to supervise the house, I will pay her seventy-five dollars and board her and the boy. Fong is kicking because he doesn't like the housework, and if I get a Mexican woman to come, there's got to be some one to oversee her. This is the only daylight I can see in the muddle you have made of things."
"Say, Mr. Traynor," Bronco leaned over the desk and spoke earnestly, "You tell her to say we're ready to lay down in the corral and let her put her iron on us without a squeal."
"An' we're all halter-broke, gentle and trained to feed from the hand," piped Roarer over Bronco's shoulder. Holy joined them. "If she don't find things pan out like she wants 'em, anytime, all she's got to do is chaw the rag and cuss, an' you bet your sweet life this yer outfit will see that she gets things her own way."
Bronco and Roarer nodded vehemently, and Holy waxed more eloquent. "Tell Mrs. Green if she acts like she's goin' to buck, to talk her into tryin' us out. You know, we're a Hell of a sight better'n we look or act, Mr. Traynor. I'll promise to put hobbles on the damn cuss words the minute she gits here."
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