Stepsons of Light

“Dinner? Let’s go! Got any beef, Bobby?”

“Better’n beef. Bear meat-jerked. Make hair grow on your chest. Ever eat any?”

“Bear meat? Who killed a bear?”

“Me. Little Bobby. All alone. Three of ’em. Killed three in the yard the very first morning,” said little Bobby proudly. “I heard them snuffin’ and millin’ round out in the water pen in the night, but I thought it was stock. Then they come up in the house yard. Soon as it come day I got up to drive ’em out – and behold you, they was no stock, but three whoppin’ brown bears. So I fogged ’em. Killed all three before they could get out of the yard.”

“Good Lord!” said Johnny. His face drooped to troubled lines. The man Hales glanced sharply at him.

“Heap big chief me!” prattled Bobby, unnoting. “Two bully good skins – had to shoot the last one all to rags to kill him – and twelve hundred pounds of good meat. Wah!” He turned to the stranger. “Well, Mr. Hales, do you think that little old plug of mine will suit you?”

“Oh, I reckon so. Beggars mustn’t be choosers – and I sure need him. Thirty dollars, you said?”

“Wouldn’t take a cent more. I’m not gougin’ you. That’s his price, weekdays or Sunday. He don’t look much, but he ain’t such a bad little hoss.”

Hales nodded. “He’ll do, I guess.”

“You done bought a horse!” said Bobby. “And Johnny, he’s got a mount to make him a rep – if they don’t spill him.” He broke into rollicking song:

They picked me up and carried me in;They rubbed me down with a rolling pin.“Oh, that’s the way we all begin,You’re doing well,” says Brown;“To-morrow morn, if you don’t die,I’ll give you another horse to try.”“Oh, can’t you let me walk?” says I —

Here he cocked an impish eye at Dines, observed that gentleman’s mournful face, and broke the song short.

“What’s the matter with you now, Dinesy? You can ride ’em, of course. No trouble after you first take the edge off.”

“It isn’t that,” said Dines sorrowfully. “I – I – you ain’t a bit to blame, but – ”

He stopped, embarrassed.

“What’s the matter, you old fool? Spill it!”

Johnny sighed and drew in a long breath.

“I hate to name it, Bob – I do so. Hiram Yoast and Foamy White, the blamed old fools, they orter told you! They’ll be all broke up about this.” He looked Bob square in the eye and plunged on desperately. “Them bears, Bobby – Hiram and Foamy had been makin’ pets of ’em. Feedin’ them beef bones and such ever since last spring – had ’em plumb gentle.”

“Hell and damnation!”

Johnny’s eyes were candid and compassionate. “Anybody would have done just the same, Bobby. Don’t you feel too bad about it. Rotten durned shame, though. Them bears was a bushel o’ fun. Jack and Jill, the two biggest ones, they was a leetle mite standoffish and inclined to play it safe. But the Prodigal Son, that’s the least one – growed a heap since last spring with plenty to eat that way – why, the Prodigal he’d never met up with any man but Foamy and Hi, so he wasn’t a mite leery. Regular clown, that bear. Stand up right in front of the door, and catch biscuit and truck the boys threw to him – loll out his little red tongue and grin like a house afire. He was right comical. How he did love molasses!”

“How come them fools didn’t tell me?” demanded the crestfallen hunter, almost in tears.

“Pretty tough luck,” said Hales commiseratingly. “I killed a pet deer once. I know just how you feel.”

“I don’t know who’s to break it to Hiram and Foamy,” said Johnny, grieving. “It’s goin’ to hurt ’em, bad! They set a heap of store by them bears – ’special the Prodigal – poor little fellow! I feel right bad myself, and I was only here two nights. Make it all the worse for them, being all on account of their cussed carelessness. I can’t see how you’re a bit to blame. Only I do think you might have noticed your night horse didn’t make any fuss. Usual, horses are scared stiff of bears. But they’d got plumb used to these.”

“Didn’t keep up no horse that night,” said Bob miserably.

“Look here!” said Hales. “What’s the use of letting them other fellows know anything about it? Mr. Dines and me, we won’t tell. This young man can send his bearskins over east, Tularosa or somewhere, and keep his lip buttoned up. No one need be ever the wiser. Bears change their range whenever they get good and ready. Nobody need know but what they just took a notion to light out.”

“Say, that’s the right idea!” said Johnny, brightening. “That’ll save a heap of trouble. Boys are liable to think the round-up scared ’em out – as might happen, easy. That ain’t all either. That plan will not only save Hi and Foamy a heap o’ grief, but it won’t be no bad thing for Bob Gifford. I’ll tell you honest, Bob – the Bar Cross will near devil the life out of you if this thing ever gets out.”

“That’s good dope, kid,” said Hales kindly. “No use cryin’ over spilt milk.”

“Let’s drop it then. I’ll get rid of the bear hides.”

“That’s right. Talkin’ about it only makes you feel bad. Forget it. Here, I’ll give you something else to think about. You two seem to be all right.”

Hales drew rein, with a long appraising look at the younger man. It seemed to satisfy him; he rode a little to one side, facing a wooded sugar-loaf hill in the middle of the rough gap leading east to Rosebud. He waved his hand. A crackling of brush made instant answer; high above them a horseman came from cover and picked his way down the steep hill.

“Friend of mine,” explained Hales, returning. “He is sort of watering at night, just now. No hanging matter – but he wouldn’t have showed up unless I waved him the O. K. And he is sure one hungry man. It’s for him I bought the horse.”

Johnny reflected a little. This was no new or startling procedure. Besides being the most lonesome spot in a thinly settled country, with a desert on each side, and with Engle, thirty miles, for next neighbor, the horse camp had other advantages. It was situated in the Panhandle of Socorro County; a long, thin strip of rough mountain, two townships wide and five long, with Sierra County west, Dona Ana to the south, Lincoln and Otero on the east; a convenient juxtaposition in certain contingencies. Many gentlemen came uncommunicative to the horse camp and departed unquestioned. In such case the tradition of hospitality required the host to ride afield against the parting time; so being enabled to say truly that he knew not the direction of his guest’s departure. Word was passed on; the Panhandle became well and widely known; we all know what the lame dog did to the doctor.

But Johnny rubbed his nose. This thing had been done with needless ostentation; and Johnny did not like Mr. Hales’ face. It was a furtive face; the angles of the eyes did not quite match, so that the eyes seemed to keep watch of each other; moreover, they were squinched little eyes, and set too close to the nose; the nose was too thin and was pinched to a covert sneer, aided therein by a sullen mouth under heavy mustaches. Altogether Mr. Hales did not look like a man overgiven to trustfulness. Johnny did not see any reason why Mr. Hales’ friend should not have ridden in later and with more reticence; so he set himself to watch for such reason.

“My friend, Mr. Smith,” announced Hales, as Mr. Smith joined them. Mr. Smith, like the others, wore belt and six-shooter; also, a rifle was strapped under his knee. He was a short and heavy-set man, singularly carefree of appearance, and he now inquired with great earnestness: “Anybody mention grub?”

“Sure,” said Bobby. “Let’s drift! Only a mile or so.”

We all went to the ranch next day;Brown augured me most all the way;He said cowpunching was only play,There was no work at all.“All you have to do is ride,It’s just like drifting with the tide – ”Lord have mercy, how he lied!He had a most horrible gall!

The walling hills were higher now. The cañon fell away swiftly to downward plunge, gravel between cut banks. Just above the horse camp it made a sharp double-S curve. Riding across a short cut of shoulder, Bob, in the lead, held up a hand to check the others. He rode up on a little platform to the right, from which, as pedestal, rose a great hill of red sandstone, square-topped and incredibly steep. Bobby waved his hat; a man on foot appeared on the crest of the red hill and zigzagged down the steeps. He wore a steeple-crowned hat and he carried a long rifle in the crook of his arm.

Johnny’s eyes widened. He exchanged a glance with Hales; and he observed that Smith and Hales did not look at each other. Yet they had – so Johnny thought – one brief glance coming to them, under the circumstances.

Hales pitched his voice low.

“You was lying about them bears, of course?”

“Got to keep boys in their place,” said Johnny in the same guarded undertone. “If them bears had really been pets do you suppose I’d ever have opened my head about it?”

“It went down easy.” Hales grinned his admiration. “You taken one chance though – about his night horse.”

“Not being scared, you mean? Well, he hasn’t mentioned any horse having a fit. And I reckoned maybe he hadn’t kept up any night horse. Really nothing much for him to do. Except cooking.”

“He does seem to have a right smart of company,” agreed Hales.

Bob returned with the last comer – a gaunt, brown man with a gift for silence.

“My friend, Mr. Jones,” Bob explained gravely. “He stakes his horse on that hilltop. Bully grass there. And quiet. He likes quiet. He doesn’t care for strangers a-tall – not unless I stand good for ’em.”

The camp – a single room, some fourteen feet by eighteen, flat roofed, made of stone with a soapstone fireplace – was built in a fenced yard on a little low red flat, looped about by the cañon, pleasant with shady cedars, overhung by a red and mighty mountain at the back, faced by a mightier mountain of white limestone. The spring gushed out at the contact of red and white.

The bunch of saddle horses was shut up in the water pen. Preparation for dinner went forward merrily, not without favorable comment from Mr. Smith for Bob’s three bearskins, a proud carpet on the floor. Mr. Jones had seen them before; Hales and Johnny kept honorable silence on that theme. Hales and Mr. Smith set a good example by removing belt and gun; an example followed by Bob, but by neither Johnny nor Mr. Jones. The latter gentleman indeed had leaned his rifle in the corner beyond the table. But while the discussion of bearskins was most animated, Johnny caught Mr. Jones’ eye, and arched a brow. Johnny next took occasion to roll his own eye slowly at the unconscious backs of Mr. Hales and Mr. Smith – and then transferred his gaze, very pointedly, to the long rifle in the corner. Shortly after, Mr. Jones rose and took a seat behind the table, with the long rifle at his right hand.

“Well, Mr. Bob,” said Hales when dinner was over, “here’s your thirty dollars. You give Smith a bill of sale and get your pardner to witness it. Me, I’m telling you good-by. I’m due to lead Smith’s discard pony about forty mile north to-night, and set him loose about daylight – up near the White Oaks stage road. Thank’ee kindly. Good-by, all!”

“Wait a minute, Toad,” said Smith briskly. “I’ll catch up my new cayuse and side you a little ways. Stake him out in good grass, some quiet place – like my pardner here.” He grinned at Mr. Jones, who smiled, attentive. “I’ll hang my saddle in a tree and hoof it back about dark. Safe enough here – all good fellows. And I sure like that bear meat. To say nothing of being full up of myself for society.”

“We’ll do the dishes,” said Johnny. “Bob, you rope me up the gentlest of my hyenas and we’ll slip down to Puddingstone presently.”

“Well, good luck to you, Mr. Dines,” said Hales at the door.

“So long.”

“That horse you’ve got staked out, Mr. Jones,” said Johnny, when the others were catching horses, “how about him? I’ve got a private horse out in the water pen. Shall we swap? Saddles too? You’re a little the biggest, but you can let out my stirrups a notch, and I can take up a notch in yours, up on that pinnacle when I go for my new horse and come back – about dark. That way, you might ride down the cañon with Bob. I think maybe – if it was important – Bob might not find the horses he wants, and might lay out to-night. And you might tell him you was coming back to camp. But you can always change your mind, you know. ‘All you have to do is ride.’”

“This is right clever of you, young man,” said Jones slowly.

“It sure is. Your saddle any good?”

“Better’n yours. Enough better to make up for the difference in hosses, unless yours is a jo-darter. My hoss is tired.”

“He’ll have all fall to rest up. We’d better trade hats, too. Somebody might be watchin’ from the hills.”

“Them fellows?” Jones motioned toward the water pen with the plate he was drying.

“Scouts, I guess. Decoy ducks. More men close, I judge. Acted like it. You ought to know.”

“It ain’t noways customary to send two men after me,” said Jones.

Johnny nodded. “You don’t know about Smithy yet. Let me wise you up.” He outlined the trustfulness of Smithy. “So he was all labeled up for an outlaw, like a sandwich man. Putting one over on Bobby – him being a boy. Bobby fell for it. And me, just a big kid myself, what show did I have with two big grown men smooth as all that? So they fooled me, too. Smithy said ‘Toad’ once – notice? Toad Hales. I’ve heard of Toad Hales. Socorro way. Big mitt man, once. Skunk – but no fighting fool. Out for the dollar.”

“He sees some several. You’re takin’ right smart of a chance, young fellow.”

“I guess I’ve got a right to swap horses if I want to. Hark! They’re ridin’ up the cañon.”

“Well, suh, I’m right obliged to you, and that’s a fact.”

“I’m not doing this for you exactly. I’m protectin’ the Bar Cross. And that’s funny, too,” said Johnny. “I’ve just barely signed up with the outfit, and right off things begin to take place in great lumps and gobs. More action in two days than I’ve seen before in two years. Here’s how I look at it: If anyone sees fit to ride up on you and gather you on the square I’ve got nothing to say. But I hold no candle to treachery. You’re here under trust. I owe it to the Bar Cross – and to you – that you leave here no worse off than you came. I don’t know what you’ve done. If it’s mean enough, I may owe it to Johnny Dines to go after you myself later on. But you go safe from here first. That’s my job.”

“And I’ll bet you’d sure come a-snuffin’. I judge you’re a right white man, suh! But it’s not so mean as all that, this time. Not even a case of ‘alive or dead.’ Just ‘for arrest and conviction.’ So I guess you’ll be reasonably safe on the hillside. No money in killing you, or me, or whoever brings my hoss off of that hill. And they’ll be counting on gathering you in easy – asleep here, likely.”

“That’s the way I figured it – that last.”

“But how’ll you square yourself with the sheriff?”

“I’ll contrive to make strap and buckle meet some way. Man dear, I’ve got to!”

“Well, then – I owe you a day in harvest. Good-by, suh. Jones, he pulls his freight.”

Johnny brought his new horse and saddle down from the red hill, unmolested. He cut out what horses he wanted to keep in the branding pen; turned the others loose, his new acquisition with them; and started supper. Mr. Smith joined him at dark; but the horse hunters did not get back. Supper followed, then seven-up and conversation. Johnny fretted over the non-return of Gifford.

“He talked as if he knew right where to lay his hand on them horses,” he complained. “Wish I had gone myself. Now in the morning I’ll have to be out of here at daylight. That bunch I got in the pen, I got to take them out to grass, and wait till Bob comes – if the blame little fool sleeps out to-night.”

“Oh, he’ll be in purty quick, likely.”

“I don’t know,” said Johnny dejectedly. “I had to-morrow all figured out like a timetable, and here it’s all gummed up. Listen. What’s that in the yard – crunchin’? Varmints, likely. When I was here last we used to throw out beef bones, and of nights we’d shoot through the doorway at the noise. We got eight skunks and three coyotes and a fox and a tub. Guess I’ll try a shot now.” He picked up his revolver and cocked it.

“Hello, the house!” said a hurried voice outside.

“Why, it’s a man!” said Johnny. He turned his gun upon Mr. Smith. “One word and you’re done,” he whispered. His eye was convincing. Smith petrified. Johnny raised his voice. “Hello, outside! You come near getting shot for a skunk! If you want supper and shelter say please and walk out loud like a man. I don’t like your pussy-foot ways.”

“Come out of there – one at a time – hands up!” said the voice. “We’ve got you surrounded. You can’t get away!”

“On the contrary, we are behind thick walls, and you can get away if you’re right quick and immediate,” said Johnny. “Inside of a minute I’m going to empty a rifle out there on general principles. This is a Bar Cross house. I am a Bar Cross man, where I belong, following orders. Half a minute more!”

“You fool! This is the sheriff’s posse!”

“I hear you say it.”

“I am the sheriff of Socorro County,” said another voice, “and I summon you to surrender.”

“I am a Bar Cross man in a Bar Cross house,” repeated Johnny. “If you’re the sheriff, walk in that door on your hind legs, with your hands up, and let us have a look at you.”

“That’s Johnny Dines talking!” said a third voice. “Hello, Dines! This is me, Bill Fewell! Say, this is the sheriff and his posse all right! Don’t you get in wrong.”

“One man may unbuckle his belt and back in at that door, hands up. If you can show any papers for me, I surrender. While I give ’em the quick look, the man that comes in is a hostage with my gun between his shoulder blades. If he takes his hands down or anybody tries any funny business, I’ll make a sieve of him. Step lively!”

“Dines, you fool,” bawled the sheriff, “I got nothing against you. But I’ve got a warrant for that man in there with you, and I’m going to have him.”

“Oh!” A moment’s silence. Then said Johnny, in an injured voice: “You might ha’ said so before. I’ve got him covered and I’ve taken his gun. So now I’ve got one gun for him and one for the hostage. Send in one man walking backward, hands up, warrant in his belt – and let him stop right in the door! No mistakes. If the warrant is right you get your man. Any reward?”

“He’s a stiff-necked piece,” said Fewell. “But he’ll do just what he says. Here, give me your warrant. He won’t hurt me – if you fellows hold steady. If you don’t, you’ve murdered me, that’s all. Hey, Dines! You stubborn long-eared Missouri mule, I’m coming, as per instructions – me, Bill Fewell. You be careful!”

He backed up and stood framed in the open door against the lamplight. Johnny’s hand flickered out and snatched the warrant.

“Why, sheriff, this seems to be all right. Only he gave me a different name. But then, he naturally would. Why, this warrant is all shipshape. Hope I get some of that reward. Here’s your man, and here are my guns.” He appeared at the door and tossed his guns down. The sheriff crowded by, and broke into a bellow of rage.

“You fool! You blundering idiot! This is one of my posse!”

“What?” Johnny’s jaw dropped in pained surprise. “He’s a liar, then. He told me he was an outlaw. Don’t blame me!”

“You hell-sent half-wit! Where’s that other man – Jones?”

“Oh, him? He’s down the cañon, sir. He went with Bob after horses. He hasn’t got back yet, sir.”

“Dines, you scoundrel! Are you trying to make a fool out of me?”

“Oh, no, sir! Impossible. Not at all, sir. If you and your posse will take cover, sir, I’ll capture him for you when he comes back, just as I did this one, sir. We are always glad to use the Bar Cross house as a trap and the Bar Cross grub for bait. As you see, sir.”

“Damn you, Dines, that man isn’t coming back!”

Johnny considered this for a little. Then he looked up with innocent eyes.

“Perhaps you are right, sir,” he said thoughtfully.

Long since, the floods have washed out the Bar Cross horse camp, torn away pens and flat and house, leaving from hill to hill a desolate wash of gravel and boulders – so that no man may say where that poor room stood. Yet youth housed there and hope, honor and courage and loyalty; there are those who are glad it shall shelter no meaner thing.

III

“I do believe there shall be a winter yet in heaven – and in hell.”

– Paradise and the Periscope.

“Realism, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads.”

– The Devil’s Dictionary.

“They sit brooding on a garbage scow and tell us how bad the world smells.”

– Berton Braley.

“Just round the block” is a phrase familiar to you. To get the same effect in the open country you would say “thirty miles” or sixty; and in those miles it is likely there would be no water and no house – perhaps not any tree. Consider now: Within the borders of New Mexico might be poured New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware. Then drop in another small state and all of Chesapeake Bay, and still New Mexico would not be brimful – though it would have to be carried carefully to avoid slopping over. Scattered across this country is a population less than that of Buffalo – half of it clustered in six-mile ribbons along the Rio Grande and the Pecos. Those figures are for to-day. Divide them by three, and then excuse the story if it steps round the block. It was long ago; Plancus was consul then.

Some two weeks after the day when Johnny Dines went to horse camp, Charlie See rode northward through the golden September; northward from Rincon, pocket of that billiard table you know of. His way was east of the Rio Grande, in the desperate twisting country where the river cuts through Caballo Mountains. His home was beyond the river, below Rincon, behind Cerro Roblado and Selden Hill; and he rode for a reason he had. Not for the first time; at every farm and clearing he was hailed with greeting and jest.

Across the river he saw the yellow walls of Colorado, of old Fort Thorne, deserted Santa Barbara. He came abreast of them, left them behind, came to Wit’s End, where the river gnaws at the long bare ridges and the wagon road clings and clambers along the brown hillside. He rode sidewise and swaying, crooning a gay little saddle song; to which Stargazer, his horse, twitched back an inquiring ear.

Oh, there was a crooked man and he rode a crooked mile—

Charlie See was as straight as his own rifle; it was the road he traveled which prompted that joyful saddle song. As will be found upon examination, that roistering ditty sorts with a joyful jog trot. It follows that Charlie See was not riding at a run, as frontiersmen do in the movies. It is a great and neglected truth that frontiersmen on the frontier never ride like the frontiersmen in films. And it may be mentioned in passing that frontiersmen on frontiers never do anything at all resembling as to motive, method or result those things which frontiersmen do in films. And that is the truth.

The actual facts are quite simple and jolly. In pursuit of wild stock, men run their horses at top speed for as short a time as may be contrived; not to make the wild stock run faster and farther, but to hold up the wild stock. Once checked, they proceed as soberly as may be to the day’s destination; eventually to a market. Horse or steer comes to market in good shape or bad, as the handling has been reckless or tender; and the best cowman is he whose herds have been moved slowest. At exceptional times – riding with or from the sheriff, to get a doctor, or, for a young man in April, riding a fresh horse for a known and measured distance, speed is permitted. But the rule is to ride slowly and sedately, holding swiftness in reserve for need. Walk, running walk, pace, jog trot – those are the road gaits, to which horses are carefully trained, giving most mileage with least effort. Rack and single-foot are tolerated but frowningly.

The mad, glad gallop is reserved for childhood and for emergencies. Penalties, progressively suitable, are provided for the mad, glad galloper. He becomes the object of sidelong glances and meaning smiles; persistent, he becomes the theme of gibe and jest to flay the skin. If he be such a one as would neither observe nor forecast, one who will neither learn nor be taught, soon or late he finds himself set afoot with a give-out horse; say, twenty-five miles from water. It is not on record that wise or foolish, after one such experience, is ever partial to the sprightly gallop as a road gait. Of thirst, as of “eloquent, just and mightie Death,” it may be truly said: “Whom none could advise, thou hast perswaded.”