Stepsons of Light Part 2

In design it is strikingly like a billiard table; forty-five miles by ninety, with mountain ranges for rail at east and west, broken highlands on the south, a lava bed on the north. At the middle of each rail and at each corner, for pockets, there is a mountain pa.s.sway and water; there are peaks and landmarks for each diamond on the rail; for the center and for each spot there is a railroad station and water--Lava, Engle and Upham. Roughly speaking there is road or trail from each spot to each pocket, each spot to each spot, each pocket to every other pocket. In the center, where you put the pin at pin pool, stands Engle.

Noon of the next day found Johnny nearing Moongate Pa.s.s, a deep notch in the San Andreas Mountains; a smooth semicircle exactly filled and fitted by the rising moon, when full and seen from Engle. Through Moongate led the wagon road, branching at the high parks on the summit to five springs: The Bar Cross horse camp, Bear Den, Rosebud, Good Fortune, Grapevine.

Johnny drove his casualties slowly up the gentle valley. On either hand a black-cedared ridge climbed eastward, each to a high black mountain at the head of the pa.s.s. Johnny gathered up what saddle horses were in the pa.s.s and moved them along with his cripples.

At the summit he came to a great gateway country of parks and cedar mottes, gentle slopes and low rolling ridges, with wide smooth valleys falling away to north and south; eastward rose a barrier of red-sandstone hills. High in those red hills Johnny saw two hors.e.m.e.n.

They drove a bunch of horses of their own; they rode swiftly down a winding backbone to intercept him. He held up his little herd; the two riders slowed up in response. They came through a greenwood archway to the little cove where Johnny waited. One was a boy of sixteen, Bob Gifford, left in charge of the horse camp; the other a tall stranger who held up his hand in salute. Young Bob reined up with a gay flourish.

"h.e.l.lo, Dinesy!" He took a swift survey of Johnny's little herd and sized up the situation. "Looks like you done signed up with the Bar Cross."

"Oh, _si_! Here's a list of horses Cole sent for. I don't know 'em all, so I brought along all I saw."

Bob took the sc.r.a.p of paper.

"Calabaza, Jug, Silver d.i.c.k--Oh, excuse me! Mr. Hales, this is Johnny Dines. Mr. Hales is thinkin' some of buying that ornery Spot horse of mine. Johnny, you got nigh all you need to make good your hospital list. Now let's see. Um-m!--Twilight, Cyclone, Dynamite, Rebel, Sif Sam, Cigarette, Skyrocket, Straight-edge, and so forth. Um! Your mount, that bunch? Sweet spirits of nitre! Oh, cowboy! You sure got to ride!"

"Last man takes the leavings," said Johnny.

"You got 'em." Bob rolled his eyes eloquently. "I'll tell a man! Two sticks and eleven catawampouses! Well, it's your funeral. Any rush?"

"Just so I get back to Engle to-morrow night."

"Easy as silk, then. All them you ain't got here will be in to water to-night or to-morrow morning, 'cept Bluebeard and Popcorn. They run at Puddingstone Tanks, down the canon. You and me will go get 'em after dinner."

"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 c.o.c.ked 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, embarra.s.sed.

"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."

"h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation!"

Johnny's eyes were candid and compa.s.sionate. "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 mola.s.ses!"

"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 b.u.t.toned up. No one need be ever the wiser. Bears change their range whenever they get good and ready. n.o.body 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 towns.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.sed 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.