Sundown Slim Part 19

"Think he could make it to the Concho?"

Sundown hesitated. "Mebby. Yes, I reckon he could. He can run all right, only I guess he kind of likes hangin' around me." And Sundown glanced sideways at Corliss.

"He seems all right. I guess I'll take him back with me. I don't like the idea of his running loose here."

"He ain't bitin' n.o.body," a.s.sured Sundown.

Corliss glanced shrewdly at the other's lean, questioning face. "Guess you won't miss him much. How are you making it?"

"Me? Fine! Reckon I'll take out me papers for a full-chested range cook afore long. You see the L.D. outfit says that I could have a job with them after the round-up. It kind of leaked out about them pies.

'Course they was jos.h.i.+n', mebby. I dunno."

"The L.D. boys are all right," said Corliss. "If you want to make a change--"

"See here, boss! I done some ramblin' in my time. Guess because I was lookin' for somethin' new and excitin'. Well, I reckon they's plenty new and excitin' right to home on the Concho. Any time I get tired of fallin' off hosses, and gettin' beat up, and mixin' up in dog and wolf fights, why, I can go to bustin' broncos to keep me from goin' to sleep. Then Chance there, he needs lookin' after."

Corliss seemingly ignored the gentle hint. He mounted and called to the dog. Chance made no movement to follow him. Corliss frowned.

"Here, Chance!" he commanded, slapping his thigh with his gauntleted hand. The dog followed at the horse's heels as Corliss rode across the hard-packed circle around the camp. Sundown's throat tightened. His pal was gone.

He puttered about, straightening the blankets. "Gee Gos.h.!.+ but this here shack looks empty! Never knowed sick folks could be so much comp'ny. And Chance is folks, all right. Talk about blue blood! Huh!

I reckon a thoroughbred dog is prouder than common folks, like me.

Some king, he was! Layin' there lookin' out at them punchers and his eyes sad-like and proud, and turnin' his head slow, watchin' 'em like they was workin' for him. They's somethin' about cla.s.s that gets a fella, even in a dog. And most folks knows it, but won't let on."

He took Chance's drinking-basin--a bread-pan appropriated from the outfit--and the frayed saddle-blanket that had been the dog's bed, and carried them to the cottonwoods edging the river. There he hid the things. He returned to the lean-to and threw himself on his blankets.

He felt as though he had just buried a friend. A cowboy strolled up and squatted in front of the lean-to. He gazed at the interior, nodded to Sundown, and rolled a cigarette. He smoked for a while, glanced up at the sky, peered round the camp, and shrugged his shoulders.

Sundown nodded. "You said it all, Joe. He's gone."

The cowboy blew rings of smoke, watching them spread and dissolve in the evening air. "Had a hoss onct," he began slowly,--"ornery, gla.s.s-eyed, she-colt that got mixed up in a bob-wire fence. Seein' as she was like to make the buzzards happy 'most any day, I took to nussin' her. Me, Joe Scott, eh? And a laugh comin'. Well, the boys joshed--mebby you hearn some of 'em call me Doc. That's why. The boys joshed and went around like they was in a horsepital, quiet and steppin' catty. I could write a book out of them jos.h.i.+n's and sell her, if I could write her with a brandin'-iron or a rope. Anyhow, the colt she gets well and I turns her out on the range, which ought to be the end of the story, but it ain't. She come nickerin' after me like I was her man, hangin' around when I showed up at the ranch jest like I was a millionaire and she wantin' to get married. Couldn't get shet of her. So one day I ropes her and says to myself I'll make a trick hoss of her and sell her. The fust trick she done wasn't the one I reckoned to learn her. She lifted me one in the jeans and I like to lost all the teeth in my head. 'You're welcome, lady,' says I, 'for this here 'fectionate token of thanks for my nussin' and gettin' joshed to fare-ye-well. Bein' set on learnin' her, I shortened the rope and let her kick a few holes in the climate. When she got tired of that, I begins workin' on her head, easy-like and talkin' kind. Fust thing I knowed she takes a san'wich out of my s.h.i.+rt, the meat part bein' a piece of my hide. Then I got riled. I lit into her with the boots, and we had it. When I got tired of exercisin' my feet, she comes to me rubbin' her nose ag'in' me and kind of nickerin' and lovin' up tremendous, bein' a she-hoss. 'Now,' says I, 'I'm goin' to do the courtin', sister.' And I sot out to learn her to shake hands. She got most as good as a state senator at it: purfessional-like, but not real glad to see you. Jest put on. Then I learns her to nod yes. That was hard. Then I gets her so she would lay down and stay till I told her to get up. 'Course it takes time and I didn't have the time reg'lar.

I feeds her every time, though. Then she took to sleepin' ag'in' the bunk-house every night, seein' as she run loose jest like a dog. When somebody'd get up in the mornin', there she would be with her eyes lookin' in the winder, s.h.i.+nin', and her ears lookin' in, too. You see she was waitin' for her beau to come out, which was me. She took to followin' me on the range when I rid out, and she got fat and sizable.

The boys give up jos.h.i.+n' and got kind of interested. But that ain't what I'm gettin' at. Come one day, about two year after I'd been monkeyin' with learnin' her her lessons, when I thinks to break her to ride. I got shet of the idea of sellin' her and was goin' to keep her myself. The boys was lookin' for to see me get piled, always figurin'

a pet hoss was worse to break than a bronc. She did some fussin', but she never bucked--never pitched a move. Thinks I, I sure got a winner.

Next day she was gone. Never seen her after that. Trailed all over the range, but she sure vamoosed. And n.o.body never seen her after that. She sure made a dent in my feelin's."

Sundown sat up blinking. "I reckon that's the difference between a hoss and a dog," he said, slowly. "Now, a hoss and me ain't what you'd call a nacheral combination. And a hoss gets away and don't come back.

But a dog comes back every time, if he can. 'Most any hoss will stay where the feedin' is good, but a dog won't. He wants to be where his boss is."

"And that there Chance is with the boss," said the cowboy, gesturing toward the north. "Seen him foller him down the trail."

Sundown nodded. The cowboy departed, swaggering away in the dusk.

Just before Sundown was called to take his turn with the night-s.h.i.+ft, a lean, brown shape tore through the camp, upsetting a pot of frijoles and otherwise disturbing the peace and order of the culinary department.

"Coyote!" shouted Wingle, vainly reaching for the gun that he had given to Sundown.

"Coyote nothin'!" said a puncher, laughing. "It's the Killer come back hot-foot to find his pardner."

Chance bounded into the lean-to: it was empty. He sniffed at the place where his bed had once been, found Sundown's tracks and followed them toward the river. Sundown was on his knees pawing over something that looked very much like a torn and frayed saddle-blanket. Chance volleyed into him, biting playfully at his sleeve, and whining.

Sundown jumped to his feet. He stood speechless. Then a slow grin crept to his face. "Gee Gos.h.!.+" he said, softly. "Gee Gos.h.!.+ It's you!"

Chance lay down panting. He had come far and fast. Sundown gathered up the blanket and pan, rose and marched to the shack. "I was airin'

'em out against your comin' back," he explained, untruthfully. The fact was that he could not bear to see the empty bed in the lean-to and had hidden it in the bushes.

The dog watched him spread the blanket, but would not lie down.

Instead he followed Sundown to the camp and found a place under the chuck-wagon, where he watched his lean companion work over the fires until midnight. If Sundown disappeared for a minute in search of something. Chance was up and at his heels. Hi Wingle expressed himself profanely in regard to the return of the dog, adding with unction, "There's a pair of 'em; a pair of 'em." Which ambiguity seemed to satisfy him immensely.

When Sundown finally returned to the lean-to, he was too happy to sleep. He built a small fire, rolled a cigarette and sat gazing into the flames. Chance sat beside him, proud, dignified, contented.

Sundown became drowsy and slept, his head fallen forward and his lean arms crossed upon his knees. Chance waited patiently for him to waken.

Finally the dog nuzzled Sundown's arm with little jerks of impatience.

"What's bitin' you now?" mumbled Sundown. "We're here, ain't we?"

Nevertheless he slipped his arm around the dog's muscular shoulders and talked to him. "How'd you get away? The boss'll raise peelin's over this, Chance. It ain't like to set good with him." He noticed that Chance frequently scratched at his collar as though it irritated him.

Finally he slipped his fingers under the collar. "Suthin' got ketched in here," he said, unbuckling the strap. Tied inside the collar was a folded piece of paper. Sundown was about to throw it away when he reconsidered and unfolded it. In the flickering light of the fire he spread the paper and read laboriously:--

"Chance followed me to the Concho because I made him come. He showed that he didn't want to stay. I let him go. If he gets back to you, keep him. He is yours.

"JOHN CORLISS."

Sundown folded the note and carefully tucked it in his pocket. He rose and slapped his chest grandiloquently. "Chance, ole pal," he said with a brave gesture, "you're mine! Got the dockyments to show. What do you think?"

Chance, with mouth open and lolling tongue, seemed to be laughing.

Sundown reached out his long arm as one who greets a friend.

The dog extended his muscular fore leg and solemnly placed his paw in Sundown's hand. No doc.u.ment was required to substantiate his allegiance to his new master, nor his new master's t.i.tle to owners.h.i.+p.

Despite genealogy, each was in his way a thoroughbred.

CHAPTER XIII

SUNDOWN, VAQUERO

The strenuous days of the round-up were over. Bands of riders departed for their distant ranches leaving a few of their number to ride line and incidentally to keep a vigilant eye On the sheep-camps.

David Loring, realizing that he had been checkmated in the first move of the game in which cattle and sheep were the p.a.w.ns and cowboys and herders the castles, knights, and, stretching the metaphor a bit, bishops, tacitly admitted defeat and employed a diagonal to draw the cattle-men's forces elsewhere. He determined to locate on the abandoned water-hole ranch, homestead it, and, by so doing, cut off the supply of water necessary to the cattle on the west side of the Concho River. This would be entering the enemy's territory with a vengeance, yet there was no law prohibiting his homesteading the ranch, the t.i.tle of which had reverted to the Government. Too shrewd to risk legal entanglement by placing one of his employees on the homestead, he decided to have his daughter file application, and nothing forbade her employing whom she chose to do the necessary work to prove up. The plan appealed to the girl for various reasons, one of which was that she might, by her presence, avert the long-threatened war between the two factions.

Sundown and, indirectly, Fadeaway precipitated the impending trouble.

Fadeaway, riding for the Blue, was left with a companion to ride line on the mesas. Sundown, although very much unlike Oth.e.l.lo, found that his occupation was gone. a.s.sistant cooks were a drug on the range. He was equipped with a better horse, a rope, quirt, slicker, and instructions to cover daily a strip of territory between the Concho and the sheep-camps. He became in fact an itinerant patrol, his mere physical presence on the line being all that was required of him.

It was the Senora Loring who drove to the Concho one morning and was welcomed by Corliss to whom she gave the little sack of gold. She told him all that he wished to know in regard to his brother Will, pleading for him with motherly gentleness. Corliss a.s.sured her that he felt no anger toward his brother, but rather solicitude, and made her happy by his generous att.i.tude toward the wrongdoer. He had already heard that his brother had driven to Antelope and taken the train for the West.

His great regret was that Will had not written to him or come to him directly, instead of leaving to the good Senora the task of explanation. "Never figured that repenting by proxy was the best plan," he told the Senora. "But he couldn't have chosen a better proxy." At which she smiled, and in departing blessed him in her sincere and simple manner, a.s.suring him in turn that should the sheep and cattle ever come to an understanding--the Spanish for which embraced the larger aspect of the problem--there was nothing she desired or prayed for more than the friends.h.i.+p and presence of Corliss at the Loring hacienda. Corliss drew his own inference from this, which was a pleasant one. He felt that he had a friend at court, yet explained humorously that sheep and cattle were not by nature fitted to occupy the same territory. He was alive to sentiment, but more keen than ever to maintain his position unalterably so far as business was concerned. The Senora liked him none the less for this. To her he was a man who stood straight, on both feet, and faced the sun. Her daughter Nell . . . Ah, the big Juan Corliss has such a fine way with him . . . what a husband for any woman! In the mean time . . . only thoughts, hopes were possible . . . yet . . . manana . . . manana . . .

there was always to-morrow that would be a brighter day.