The Flying U Ranch by B. M. Bower (ebook reader online free txt) 📕
- Author: B. M. Bower
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Big Medicine was a strong man, the grip held firm and unyielding.
“You must think of the outfit, you know,” said Miguel, smiling
still. “There must be no shooting. Once that begins—” He
shrugged his shoulders with that slight, eloquent movement, which
the Happy Family had come to know so well. He was speaking to
them all, as they crowded up to the scuffle. “The man who feels
the trigger-itch had better throw his gun away,” he advised
coolly. “I know, boys. I’ve seen these things start before. All
hell can’t stop you, once you begin to shoot. Put it up, Bud, or
give it to me.”
“The man don’t live that can shoot at me, by cripes, and git away
with it. Not if he misses killin’ me!” Big Medicine was shaking
with rage; but the Native Son saw that he hesitated,
nevertheless, and laughed outright.
“Call him out and give him a thumping. That’s good enough for a
sheepherder,” he suggested as a substitute.
Perhaps because the Native Son so seldom offered advice, and,
because of his cool courage in interfering with Big Medicine at
such a time, Bud’s jaw relaxed and his pale eyes became more
human in their expression. He even permitted Miguel to remove the
big, wicked Colt from his hand, and slide it into his own pocket;
whereat the Happy Family gasped with astonishment. Not even Pink
would have dreamed of attempting such a thing.
“Well he’s got to come out and take a lickin’, anyway,” shouted
Big Medicine vengefully, and rode close enough to slap the canvas
smartly with his quirt. By all the gods he knew by name he called
upon the offender to come forth, while the others drew up in a
rude half-circle to await developments. Heavy silence was the
reply he got. It was as though the men within were sitting tense
and watchful, like cougars crouched for a spring, with claws
unsheathed and muscles quivering.
“You better come out,” called Andy sharply, after they had waited
a decent interval. “We didn’t come here hunting trouble; we want
to know where you’re headed for with these sheep. The fellow that
cut loose with the gun—”
“Aw, don’t talk so purty! I’m gitting almighty tired, just
setting here lettin’ m’ legs hang down. Git your ropes, boys!”
With one sweeping gesture of his arm Big Medicine made plain his
meaning as he rode a few paces away, his fingers fumbling with
the string that held his rope. “I’m goin’ to have a look at ‘em,
anyway,” he grinned. “I sure do hate to see men act so bashful.”
With his rope free and ready for action, Big Medicine shook the
loop out, glanced around, and saw that Andy, Pink and Cal Emmett
were also ready, and, with a dexterous flip, settled the noose
neatly over the iron pin that thrust up through the end of the
ridge-pole in front. Andy’s loop sank neatly over it a second
later, and the two wheeled and dashed away together, with Pink
and Irish duplicating their performance at the other end of the
tent. The dingy, smoke-stained canvas swayed, toppled, as the
pegs gave way, and finally lay flat upon the prairie fifty feet
from where it had stood, leaving the inmates exposed to the cruel
stare of eight unfriendly cowpunchers. Four cowering figures they
were, with guns in their hands that shook.
“Drop them guns!” thundered Big Medicine, flipping his rope loose
and recoiling it mechanically as he plunged up to the group.
One man obeyed. One gave a squawk of terror and permitted his gun
to go off at random before he fled toward the coulee. The other
two crouched behind their bed-rolls, set their jaws doggedly and
glared defiance.
Pink, Andy, Irish, Big Medicine and the Native Son slid off their
horses and made a rush at them. A rifle barked viciously, and
Slim, sitting prudently on his horse well in the rear, gave a
yell and started for home at a rapid pace.
Considering the provocation the Happy Family behaved with quite
praiseworthy self-control and leniency. They did not lynch those
two herders. They did not kill them, either by bullets, knives,
or beating to death. They took away the guns, however, and they
told them with extreme bluntness what sort of men they believed
them to be. They defined accurately their position in society at
large, in that neighborhood, and stated what would be their
future fate if they persisted in acting with so little caution
and common sense.
At Andy Green’s earnest behest they also wound them round and
round with ropes, before they departed, and gave them some very
good advice upon the matter of range rules and the herding of
sheep, particularly of Dot sheep.
“You’re playing big luck, if you only had sense enough to know
it,” Andy pointed out to the recumbent three before they rode
away. “We didn’t come over here on the warpath, and, if you
hadn’t got in such a darned hurry to start something, you’d be a
whole lot more comfortable right now. We rode over to tell yuh
not to start them sheep across Flying U coulee; because, if you
do, you’re going to have both hands and your hats plumb full uh
trouble. It has taken some little time and fussing to get yuh
gentled down so we can talk to you, and I sure do hope yuh
remember what I’m saying.”
“Oh, we’ll remember it, all right!” menaced one of the men,
lifting his head turtlewise that he might glare at the group.
“And our bosses’ll remember it; you needn’t worry about that
none. You wait till—”
The next man to him turned his head and muttered a sentence, and
the speaker dropped his head back upon the ground, silenced.
“It was your own outfit started this style of rope trimming, so
you can’t kick about that part of the deal,” Pink informed them
melodiously. “It’s liable to get to be all the rage with us. So,
if you don’t like it, don’t come around where we are. And say!”
His dimples stood deep in his cheeks. “You send those ropes home
to-morrow, will yuh? We’re liable to need ‘em.”
“by cripes!” Big Medicine bawled. “What say we haze them sheep a
few miles north, boys?”
“Oh, I guess they’ll be all right where they are,” Andy
protested, his thirst for revenge assuaged at sight of those
three trussed as he had been trussed, and apparently not liking
it any better than he had liked it. “They’ll be good and careful
not to come around the Flying U—or I miss my guess a mile.”
The others cast comprehensive glances at their immediate
surroundings, and decided that they had at least made their
meaning plain; there was no occasion for emphasizing their
disapproval any further. They confiscated the rifles, and they
told the fellows why they did so. They very kindly pulled a
tarpaulin over the three to protect them in a measure from the
chill night that was close upon them, and they wished them good
night and pleasant dreams, and rode away home.
On the way they met Weary and Happy Jack, galloping anxiously to
the battle scene. Slim, it appeared from Weary’s rapid
explanation, had arrived at the ranch with his horse in a lather
and with a four-inch furrow in the fleshiest part of his leg,
where a bullet had flicked him in passing. The tale he told had
led Weary to believe that Slim was the sole survivor of that
reckless company.
“Mamma! I’m so glad to see you boys able to fork your horses and
swear natural, that I don’t believe I can speak my little piece
about staying on your own side the fence and letting trouble do
some of the hunting,” he exclaimed thankfully. “I wish you’d
stayed at home and left these blamed Dots alone. But, seeing yuh
didn’t, I’m tickled to death to hear you didn’t kill anybody off.
I don’t want the folks to come home and find the whole bunch in
the pen. It might look as if—”
“You don’t want the folks to come home and find the whole ranch
sheeped off, either, and the herders camping up in the white
house, do yuh?” Pink inquired pointedly. “I kinda think,” he
added dryly, “those same herders will feel like going away around
Flying U fences with their sheep. I don’t believe they’ll do any
cutting across.”
“I betche old Dunk’ll make it interestin’ fer this outfit, just
the same,” Happy Jack predicted. “Tyin’ up three men uh hisn,
like that, and ropin’ their tent and draggin’ it off, ain’t
things he’ll pass up. He’ll have a possy out here—you see if he
don’t!”
“In that case, I’ll be sorry for you, Happy,” purred Miguel close
beside him. “You’re the only one in the outfit that looks capable
of such a vile deed.”
“Oh, Dunk won’t do anything,” Weary said cheerfully. “You’ll have
to take those guns back, though. They might take a notion to call
that stealing!”
“You forget,” the Native Son reminded calmly, “that we left them
three good ropes in exchange.”
Whereupon the Happy Family laughed and went to offer their
unsought sympathy to Slim.
CHAPTER X. The Happy Family Herd Sheep
The boys of the Flying U had many faults in common, aside from
certain individual frailties; one of their chief weaknesses was
over-confidence in their own ability to cope with any situation
which might arise, unexpectedly or otherwise, and a belief that
others felt that same confidence in them, and that enemies were
wont to sit a long time counting the cost before venturing to
offer too great an affront. Also they believed—and made it
manifest in their conversation—that they could even bring the
Old Man back to health if they only had him on the ranch where
they could get at him. They maligned the hospitals and Chicago
doctors most unjustly, and were agreed that all he needed was to
be back on the ranch where somebody could look after him right.
They asserted that, if they ever got tired of living and wanted
to cash in without using a gun or anything, they’d go to a
hospital and tell the doctors to turn loose and try to cure them
of something.
This by way of illustration; also as an explanation of their
sleeping soundly that night, instead of watching for some hostile
demonstration on the part of the Dot outfit. To a man—one never
counted Happy Jack’s prophecies of disaster as being anything
more than a personal deformity of thought—they were positive in
their belief that the Dot sheepherders would be very, very
careful not to provoke the Happy Family to further manifestations
of disapproval. They knew what they’d get, if they tried any more
funny business, and they’d be mighty careful where they drove
their sheep after this.
So, with the comfortable glow of victory in their souls, they
laid them down, and, when the animated discussion of that night’s
adventure flagged, as their tongues grew sleep-clogged and their
eyelids drooped, they slept in peace; save when Slim, awakened by
the soreness of his leg, grunted a malediction or two before he
began snoring again.
They rose and ate their breakfast in a fair humor with the world.
One grows accustomed to the thought of sickness, even when it
strikes close to the affections, and, with the resilience of
youth and hope, life adjusts itself to make room for the specter
of fear, so that it does not crowd unduly, but stands
half-forgotten in the background of one’s thoughts. For that
reason they no longer spoke soberly because of the Old
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