The Orphan Part 19

"Well, what then?" he asked.

"Oh, the hunter left for New York the very next day, and I skinned the bear and sent the pelt after him as a present. When I wrote out my quarterly report, the foreman not being back yet, I told the Old Man that if he had any more friends what wanted to go hunting to send them up to Frenchy McAllister on the Tin Cup. I was some sore at Frenchy for the way he had cleaned me out at poker."

He threw the skin to the floor and began to undress.

"Come on, now, lights out," he said. "I'm tired."

CHAPTER XIV

THE SHERIFF STATES SOME FACTS

The foreman of the Star C impatiently tossed his bridle reins over the post which stood near the sheriff's door and knocked heavily, brus.h.i.+ng the dust of his ride from him. Quick, heavy steps approached within the house and the door suddenly flew open.

"Hullo, Tom!" s.h.i.+elds cried, shaking hands with his friend. "Come right in--I knew you would come if we coaxed you a little."

"You don't have to do much coaxing--I can't stay away, Jim," replied Blake with a laugh. "How do you do, Mrs. s.h.i.+elds?"

"Very well, Tom," she answered. "Miss Ritchie, Helen, Mary, this is Tom Blake; Tom, Miss Ritchie and James' sisters. They are to stay with us just as long as they can, and I'll see that it is a good, long time, too."

"How do you do?" he cried heartily, acknowledging the introduction. "I am glad to meet you, for I've heard a whole lot about you. I hope you'll like this country--greatest country under the sky! You stay out here a month and I'll bet you'll be just like lots of people, and not want to go back East again."

"It seems as though we have always known Mr. Blake, for James has written about you so much," replied Helen, and then she laughed: "But I am not so sure about liking this country, although very unusual things seem to take place in it. The journey was very trying, and it seemed to get worse as we neared our destination."

"Well, I'll have to confess that the stage-ride part of it is a drawback, and also that Apaches don't make good reception committees. They are a little too pressing at times."

"But, speaking seriously," responded Helen, "I have had a really delightful time. James has managed to get me a very tame horse after quite a long search, and I have taken many rides about the country."

"Wait 'til you see that horse, Tom," laughed the sheriff. "It's warranted not to raise any devilment, but it can't, for it has all it can do to stand up alone, and can't very well run away."

"I see that The Orphan delivered my message, contrary to the habits of men," remarked the sheriff's wife as she took the guest's hat and offered him a seat. "I spoke to James about it several days ago, and asked him to send you word when he could, for you have not been here for a long time.

And the wonderful thing about it is that he remembered to tell The Orphan."

"Thank you," he replied, seating himself. "Yes, he delivered it all right, it was about the second thing he said. But I just couldn't get here any sooner, Mrs. s.h.i.+elds. And I was just wondering if I could get over to-night when he told me. When he said 'apricot pie' he looked sort of sad."

"Poor boy!" she exclaimed. "You must take him one--it was a shame to send such a message by him, poor, lonesome boy!"

"Well, he ain't so lonesome now," laughed Blake.

Helen had looked up quickly at the mention of The Orphan's name, and the sheriff replied to her look of inquiry.

"I sent him out to punch for Blake, Helen," he said quickly. "If he has the right spirit in him he'll get along with the Star C outfit; if he hasn't, why, he won't get on with anybody. But I reckon Tom will bring out all the good in him; he'll have a fair show, anyhow."

"And you never told us about it!" cried Helen reproachfully.

"Oh, I was saving it up," laughed the sheriff. "What do you think of him, Tom?" he asked, turning to the foreman.

"Why, he's a clean-looking boy," answered Blake. "I like his looks. He seems to be a fellow what can be depended on in a pinch, and after all I had heard about him he sort of took me by surprise. I thought he would be a tough-looking killer, and there he was only a overgrown, mischievous kid. But there is a look in his eyes that says there is a limit. But he surprised me, all right."

"You want to appreciate that, Miss Ritchie," remarked the sheriff, smiling broadly. "Anything that takes Tom Blake by surprise must have merit of some kind. And he is a good judge of men, too."

"I do so hope he gets on well," she replied earnestly. "He was a perfect gentleman when he was here, and his wit was sharp, too. And out there on that awful plain, when he stood swaying with weakness, he looked just splendid!"

"Pure grit, pure grit!" cried the sheriff in reply. "That's why I'm banking on him," he added, his eyes warming as he remembered. "Any fellow who could turn a trick like that, and who has so much clean-cut courage, must be worth looking after. He's got a bad reputation, but he's plumb white and square with me, and I'm going to be square with him. And when you know all that I know about him you'll take his reputation as a natural result of hard luck, s.p.u.n.k, and other people's devilment and foolishness. But he's going to have a show now, all right."

"What did your men say when they saw him? Do they know who he is?" asked Mrs. s.h.i.+elds anxiously.

Blake laughed: "Oh, yes, they know who he is. They ain't the talking kind in a case like that; they won't say a word to him about what he has done. Besides, he was under their roof, eating their food, and that's enough for them. Of course, they were a little surprised, but not half as much as I thought they would be. He is a man who gives a good first impression, and the boys are all fine fellows, big-hearted, square, clean-living and peaceful. Reputations don't count for much with them, for they know that reputations are gossip-made in most cases. I asked him to stay, and they haven't got no reason to object, and they won't waste no time looking for reasons, neither. If there is any trouble at all, it will be his own fault. Then again, they know that he is all sand and that his gunplay is real and sudden; not that they are afraid of him, or anybody else, for that matter, but he is the kind of a man they like--somebody who can stand up on his own legs and give better than he gets."

"I reckon he fills that bill, all right," laughed the sheriff. "He _can_ stand up on his own legs, and when he does he makes good. And as for gunplay, good Lord, he's a sh.o.r.e wizard! I reckoned I could do things with a gun, but he can beat me. He ain't no Boston pet, and he ain't no city tough, not nohow. And I'd rather have him with me in a mix-up than against me. He's the coolest proposition loose in this part of the country at any game, and I know what I'm talking about, too."

"You promised to tell us everything about him, all you knew," reproached Helen. "And I am sure that it will be well worth hearing."

"Well, I was saving it up 'til I could tell it all at once and when you would all be together," he replied. "There wasn't any use of telling it twice," he explained as he brought out a box of cigars. "These are the same brand you sampled last time you were here," he a.s.sured his friend as he extended the box.

"By George, that's fine!" cried the foreman, picking out the blackest cigar he could see. "I could taste them cigars for a whole week, they was so good. There's nothing like a good Perfecto to make a fellow feel like he's too lucky to live."

"Oh," said Mrs. s.h.i.+elds. "Then you won't care for the coffee and pie and gingerbread," she sighed. "I'm very sorry."

Blake jumped: "Lord, Ma'am," he cried hastily, "I meant in the smoking line! Why, I've been losing sleep a-dreaming of your cooking. Every time the cook fills my cup with his insult to coffee I feel so lonesome that it hurts!"

"You want to look out, Tom!" laughingly warned the sheriff, "or you'll get yourself disliked! When I don't care for Margaret's cooking I ain't fool enough to say so, not a bit of it."

"You're a nice one to talk like that!" cried his wife. "You are just like a little boy on baking day--I can hardly keep you out of the kitchen. You bother me to death, and it is all I can do to cook enough for you!"

After the laugh had subsided and a steaming cup of coffee had been placed at the foreman's elbow, Helen impatiently urged her brother to begin his story.

He lighted his cigar with exasperating deliberateness and then laughed softly: "Gos.h.!.+ I'm getting to be a second fiddle around here. From morning to night all I hear is The Orphan. The first thing that hits me when I come home is, 'Have you seen The Orphan?' or, 'Have you heard anything about him?' The worst offenders are Miss Ritchie and Helen. They pester me nigh to death about him. But here goes:

"I reckon I'd better begin with Old John Taylor," he slowly began. "I've been doing some quiet hunting lately, and in the course of it I ran across Old John down in Crockettsville. You remember him, don't you, Tom? Yes, I reckoned you wouldn't forget the man who got us out of that Apache sc.r.a.pe. Well, I had a good talk with him, and this is what I learned:

"About twenty years ago a family named Gordon moved into northwestern Texas and put up a shack in one of the valleys. There was three of them, father, mother, and a bright little five-year-old boy, and they brought about two hundred head of cattle, a few horses and a whole raft of books. Gordon bought up quite a bit of land from a ranch nearby at almost a song, and he never thought of asking for a deed--who would, down there in those days? There wasn't a rancher who owned more than a quarter section; you know the game, Tom--take up a hundred and sixty acres on a stream and then claim about a million, and fight like the very devil to hold it. We've all done it, I reckon, but there is plenty of land for everybody, and so there is no kick. Well, he was sh.o.r.e lucky, for his boundary on two sides was a fair-sized stream that never went dry, and you know how scarce that is--a whole lot better than a gold mine to a cattleman.

"They got along all right for a while, had a tenderfoot's luck with their cattle, which soon began to be more than a few specks on the plain, and he was very well satisfied with everything, except that there wasn't no school. Old man Gordon was daffy on education, which is a good thing to be daffy over, and he was some strong in that line himself, having been a school teacher back East. But he took his boy in hand and taught him all he knew, which must have been a whole lot, judging from things in general, and the kid was a smart, quick youngster. He was plumb crazy about two things--books and guns. He read and re-read all the books he could borrow, and got so he could handle a gun with any man on the range.

"About five years after he had located, the ranchman from whom he bought his range and water rights went and died. Some of the heirs, who were not what you would call square, began to get an itching for Gordon's land, which was improved by the first irrigation ditch in Texas. There was a garden and a purty good orchard, which was just beginning to bear fruit.

It was pure, cussed hoggishness, for there was more land than anybody had any use for, but they must grab everything in sight, no matter what the cost. Trouble was the rule after that, and the old man was up against it all the time. But he managed to hold his own, even though he did lose a lot of cattle.

"His brand was a gridiron, which wasn't much different from the gridiron circle brand of the big ranch. It ain't much trouble to use a running iron through a wet blanket and change a brand like that when you know how, and the Gridiron Circle gang sh.o.r.e enough knew how. Their expertness with a running iron would have caused questions to be asked, and probably a lynching bee, in other parts of the country, but down there they were purty well alone. They let Gordon know that he had jumped the range, which was just what they had done, that he didn't own it, and that the sooner he left the country the better it would be for his health. But he had peculiar ideas about justice, and he sh.o.r.e was plumb full of grit and obstinacy. He knew he was right, that he had paid for the land, and that he had improved it. And he had a lot of faith in the law, not realizing that he hadn't anything to show the law. And he didn't know that law and justice don't always mean the same thing, not by a long shot.

"Well, one day he went out looking for a vein of coal, which he thought ought to be thereabouts, according to his books, and it ought to be close to the surface of a fissure. He reckoned that coal of any quality would be some better than chips and the little wood he owned, so he got busy.

But he didn't find coal, but something that made him hotfoot it to his books. When the report came back from the a.s.say office he knew that he had hit on a vein of native silver, which was some better than coal.

"It didn't take long for the news to get around, though G.o.d Himself only knows how it did, unless the storekeeper told that a package had gone through his hands addressed to the a.s.say office, and things began to happen in chunks. He caught three Gridiron Circle punchers shooting his cows, and he was naturally mad about it and just shot up the bunch before they knew he was around. He killed one and spoiled the health of the other two for some time to come, which naturally spelled war with a big W. Then about this time his wife went and died, which was a purty big addition to his troubles. As he stood above her grave, all broken up, and about ready to give up the fight and go back East, he was shot at from cover.

He didn't much care if he was killed or not, until he remembered that he had a boy to take care of. Then he got fighting mad all at once, all of his troubles coming up before him in a bunch, and he got his gun and went hunting, which was only right and proper under the circ.u.mstances."