Partners of Chance Part 4

"But we old-timers lived to find out that Arizona was too young to get married yet; so we just had to set back and kind of admire her, after havin' courted her an amazin' lot, in our young days." The Senator chuckled. "Now, Lon, here, he'll tell you that there ain't no po'try in this here country. And I never knew they was till I got time to set back and think over what we unbranded yearlin's used to do."

"For instance?" queried Bartley.

Senator Steve waved his pudgy hand as though shooing a flock of chickens off a front lawn. "If I was to tell you some of the things that happened, you would think I was a heap sight bigger liar than I am.

Seein' some of them yarns in print, folks around this country would say: 'Steve Brown's corralled some tenderfoot and loaded him to the muzzle with s.h.i.+n tangle and ancient history!' Things that would seem amazin' to you would never ruffle the hair of the mavericks that helped make this country."

"This country ain't all settled yet," said the foreman, rising. "Reckon I'll step along, Steve."

After the foreman had departed, Bartley turned to the Senator. "Are there many more like him, out here?"

"Who, Lon? Well, a few. He's been foreman for me quite a spell. Lon he thinks. And that's more than I ever did till after I was thirty. And Lon ain't twenty-six, yet."

"I think I'll step over to the drug-store and get a few things," said Bartley.

"So you figure to bed down at the hotel, eh?"

"Yes. For a few days, at least. I want to get over the idea that I have to take the next train West before I make any further plans."

The Senator accompanied Bartley to the drug-store. The Easterner bought what he needed in the way of shaving-kit and brush and comb. The Senator excused himself and crossed the street to talk to a friend. The afternoon sun slanted across the hot roofs, painting black shadows on the dusty street. Bartley found Wishful, the proprietor, and told him that he would like to engage a room with a bath.

Wishful smiled never a smile as he escorted Bartley to a room.

"I'll fetch your bath up, right soon," he said solemnly.

Presently Wishful appeared with a galvanized iron washtub and a kettle of boiling water. Bartley thanked him.

"You can leave 'em out in the hall when you're through," said Wishful.

Bartley enjoyed a refres.h.i.+ng bath and rub-down. Later he set the kettle and tub out in the dim hallway. Then he sat down and wrote a letter to his friend in California, explaining his change of plan. The afternoon sunlight waned. Bartley gazed out across the vast mesas, lavender-hued and wonderful, as they darkened to blue, then to purple that was shot with strange half-lights from the descending sun.

Suddenly a giant hand seemed to drop a canopy over the vista, and it was night. Bartley lighted the oil lamp and sat staring out into the darkness. From below came the rattle of dishes. Presently Bartley heard heavy, deliberate footsteps ascending the stairway. Then a clanging crash and a thud, right outside his door. He flung the door open.

Senator Steve was rising from the flattened semblance of a washtub and feeling of himself tenderly. The Senator blinked, surveyed the wrecked tub and the kettle silently, and then without comment he stepped back and kicked the kettle. It soared and dropped clanging into the hall below.

Wishful appeared at the foot of the stairs. "Did you ring, Senator?"

"Yes, I did! And I'm goin' to ring again."

"Hold on!" said Wishful, "I'll come up and get the tub. I got the kettle."

The Senator puffed into Bartley's room and sat on the edge of the bed.

He wiped his bald head, smiling cherubically. "Did you hear him, askin'

me, a member of the Society for the Prevention of Progress, if I rang for him! That's about all the respect I command in this community. I sure want to apologize for not stoppin' to knock," added the Senator.

Bartley grinned. "It was hardly necessary. I heard you."

"I just came up to see if you would take dinner with me and my missus.

We're goin' to eat right soon. You see, my missus never met up with a real, live author."

"Thanks, Senator. I'll be glad to meet your family. But suppose you forget that author stuff and just take me as a tenderfoot out to see the sights. I'll like it better."

"Why, sure! And while the House is in session, I might rise to remark that I can't help bein' called 'Senator,' because I'm guilty. But, honest, I always feel kinder toward my fellow-bein's who call me just plain 'Steve.'"

"All right. I'll take your word for it."

"Don't you take my word for anything. How do you know but I might be tryin' to sell you a gold mine?"

"I think the risk would be about even," said Bartley.

The Senator chuckled. "I just heard Wishful lopin' down the hall with his bathin' outfit, so I guess the right of way is clear again. And there goes the triangle--sounds like the old ranch, that triangle. You see, Wishful used to be a cow-hand, and lots of cow-hands stop at this hotel when they're in town. That triangle sounds like home to 'em. I'm stoppin' here myself. But I got a real bathroom out to the ranch. Let's go down and look at some beef on the plate."

CHAPTER V

"TOP HAND ONCE"

Bartley happened to be alone on the veranda of the Antelope House that evening. Senator Brown and his "missus" had departed for their ranch.

Mrs. Senator Brown had been a bit diffident when first meeting Bartley, but he soon put her at her ease with some amusing stories of Eastern experiences. The dinner concluded with an invitation from Mrs. Brown that antic.i.p.ated Bartley visiting the ranch and staying as long as he wished. The day following the Senator's departure Bartley received a telegram from his friend in California, wis.h.i.+ng him good luck and a pleasant journey in the Arizona country. The friend would see to Bartley's baggage, as Bartley had forwarded the claim checks in his letter.

The town was quiet and the stars were serenely brilliant. The dusty, rutted road past the hotel, dim gray in the starlight, m.u.f.fled the tread of an occasional Navajo pony pa.s.sing in the faint glow of light from the doorway. Bartley was content with things as he found them, just then.

But he knew that he would eventually go away from there--from the untidy town, the railroad, the string of box-cars on the siding, and seek the new, the unexpected, an experience to be had only by kicking loose from convention and stepping out for himself. He thought of writing a Western story. He realized that all he knew of the West was from hearsay, and a brief contact with actual Westerners. He would do better to go out in the fenceless land and live a story, and then write it. And better still, he would let chance decide where and when he would go.

His first intimation that chance was in his vicinity was the distant, faint cadence of a song that floated over the night-black mesa from the north. Presently he heard the soft, m.u.f.fled tread of horses and a distinct word or two of the song. He leaned forward, interested, amused, alert. The voice was a big voice, mellowed by distance. There was a take-it-or-leave-it swing to the melody that suggested the singer's absolute oblivion to anything but the joy of singing. Again the plod, plod of the horses, and then:

I was top-hand once for the T-Bar-T, In the days of long ago, But I took to seein' the scenery Where the barbed-wire fence don't grow.

I was top-hand once--but the trail for mine, And plenty of room to roam; So now I'm ridin' the old chuck line, And any old place is home ... for me ...

And any old place is home.

Bartley grinned. Whoever he was, drifting in from the northern s.p.a.ces, he had evidently lost the pack-horse that bore his troubles. Suddenly, out of the wall of dusk that edged the strip of road loomed a horse's head, and then another. The lead horse bore a pack. The second horse was ridden by an individual who leaned slightly forward, his hands clasped comfortably over the saddle horn. The horses stopped in the light of the doorway.

"Well, I reckon we're here," said a voice. "But hotels and us ain't in the same cla.s.s. I stop at the Antelope House, take a look at her, and then spread my roll in the brush, same as always. n.o.body to home? They don't know what they're missin'."

Bartley struck a match and lighted his cigar. The pack-horse jerked its head up.

"h.e.l.lo, stranger! Now I didn't see you settin' there."

"Good-evening! But why 'stranger' when you say you can't see me?"

"Why? 'Cause everybody knows _me_, and you didn't whoop when I rode up.

Me, I'm Cheyenne, from no place, and likewise that's where I'm goin'.

This here town of Antelope got in the way--towns is always gittin' in my way--but n.o.body can help that. Is Wishful bedded down for the night or is he over to the Blue Front shootin' c.r.a.ps?"

"I couldn't say. I seem to be the only one around here, just now."