The Flying U Ranch by B. M. Bower (ebook reader online free txt) 📕

Man lying

hurt unto death in Chicago. And, when they mentioned the Dot

sheep and men, they spoke as men speak of the vanquished.

 

With the taste of hot biscuits and maple syrup still lingering

pleasantly against their palates, they went out and were

confronted with sheep, blatting sheep, stinking sheep,

devastating sheep, Dot sheep. On the south side of the coulee, up

on the bluff, grazed the band. They fed upon the brow of the hill

opposite the ranch buildings; they squeezed under the fence and

spilled a ragged fringe of running, gray animals down the slope.

Half a mile away though the nearest of them were, the murmur of

them, the smell of them, the whole intolerable presence of them,

filled the Happy Family with an amazed loathing too deep for

words.

 

Technically, that high, level stretch of land bounding Flying U

coulee on the south was open range. It belonged to the

government. The soil was not fertile enough even for the most

optimistic of “dry land” farmers to locate upon it; and this was

before the dry-land farming craze had swept the country,

gathering in all public land as claims. J. G. Whitmore had

contented himself with acquiring title to the whole of the Flying

U coulee, secure in his belief that the old order of things would

not change, in his life-time, at least, and that the unwritten

law of the range land, which leaves the vicinity of a ranch to

the use of the ranch owner, would never be repealed by new

customs imposed by a new class of people.

 

Legally, there was no trespassing of the Dots, beyond the two or

three hundred which had made their way through the fence.

Morally, however, and by right of custom, their offense would not

be much greater if they came on down the hill and invaded the Old

Man’s pet meadows, just beyond the “little pasture.”

 

Ladies may read this story, so I am not going to pretend to

repeat the things they said, once they were released from dumb

amazement. I should be compelled to improvise and substitute—

which would remove much of the flavor. Let bare facts suffice, at

present.

 

They saddled in haste, and in haste they rode to the scene. This,

they were convinced, was the band herded by the bugkiller and

the man from Wyoming; and the nerve of those two almost excited

the admiration of the Happy Family. It did not, however, deter

them from their purpose.

 

Weary, to look at him, was no longer in the mood to preach

patience and a turning of the other cheek. He also made that

change of heart manifest in his speech when Pink, his eyes almost

black, rode up close and gritted at him:

 

“Well, what’s the orders now? Want me to go back and get the wire

nippers so we can let them poor little sheep down into the

meadow? Maybe we better ask the herders down to have some of

Patsy’s grub, too; I don’t believe they had time to cook much

breakfast. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to haze our own stuff

clear off the range. I’m afraid Dunk’s sheep are going to fare

kinda slim, if we go on letting our cattle eat all the good

grass!” Pink did not often indulge in such lengthy sarcasm,

especially toward his beloved Weary; but his exasperation toward

Weary’s mild tactics had been growing apace.

 

Weary’s reply, I fear, will have to be omitted. It was terribly

unrefined.

 

“I want you boys to spread out, around the whole bunch,” was his

first printable utterance, “and haze these sheep just as far

south as they can get without taking to the river. Don’t get all

het up chasing ‘em yourself—make the men (Weary did not call

them men; he called them something very naughty) that’s paid for

it do the driving.”

 

“And, if they don’t go,” drawled the smooth voice of the Native

Son, “what shall we do, amigo? Slap them on the wrist?”

 

Weary twisted in the saddle and sent him a baleful glance, which

was not at all like Weary the sunny-hearted.

 

“If you can’t figure that out for yourself,” he snapped, “you had

better go back and wipe the dishes for Patsy; and, when that’s

done, you can pull the weeds out of his radishes. Maybe he’ll

give you a nickel to buy candy with, if you do it good.” Before

he faced to the front again his harsh glance swept the faces of

his companions.

 

They were grinning, every man of them, and he knew why. To see

him lose his temper was something of an event with the Happy

Family, who used sometimes to fix the date of an incident by

saying, “It was right after that time Weary got mad, a year ago

last fall,” or something of the sort. He grinned himself,

shamefacedly, and told them that they were a bunch of no-account

cusses, anyway, and he’d just about as soon herd sheep himself as

to have to run with such an outfit; which swept his anger from

him and left him his usual self, with but the addition of a

purpose from which nothing could stay him. He was going to settle

the sheep question, and he was going to settle it that day.

 

Only one injunction did he lay upon the Happy Family. “You

fellows don’t want to get excited and go to shooting,” he warned,

while they were still out of hearing of the herders. “We don’t

want Dunk to get anything like that on us; savvy?”

 

They “savvied,” and they told him so, each after his own

individual manner.

 

“I guess we ought to be able to put the run on a couple of

sheepherders, without wasting any powder,” Pink said loftily,

remembering his meeting with them a few days before.

 

“One thing sure—we’ll make a good job of it this time,” promised

Irish, and spurred after Weary, who was leading the way around

the band.

 

The herders watched them openly and with the manner of men who

are expecting the worst to happen. Unlike the four whose camp had

been laid low the night before, these two were unarmed, as they

had been from the first; which, in Weary’s opinion, was a bit of

guile upon the part of Dunk. If trouble came—trouble which it

would take a jury to settle—the fact that the sheepmen were

unarmed would tell heavily in their favor; for, while the petty

meanness of range-stealing and nagging trespass may be harder to

bear than the flourishing of a gun before one’s face, it all

sounds harmless enough in the telling.

 

Weary headed straight for the nearest herder, told him to put his

dogs to work rounding up the sheep, which were scattered over an

area half a mile across while they fed, and, when the herder, who

was the bugkiller, made no move to obey, Weary deliberately

pulled his gun and pointed at his head.

 

“You move,” he directed with grim intent, “and don’t take too

much time about it, either.”

 

The bugkiller, an unkempt, ungainly figure, standing with his

back to the morning sun, scowled up at Weary stolidly.

 

“Yuh dassent shoot,” he stated sourly, and did not move.

 

For answer, Weary pulled back the hammer; also he smiled as

malignantly as it was in his nature to do, and hoped in his heart

that he looked sufficiently terrifying to convince the man. So

they faced each other in a silent clash of wills.

 

Big Medicine had not been saying much on the way over, which was

unusual. Now he rode forward until he was abreast of Weary, and

he grinned down at the bugkiller in a way to distract his

attention from the gun.

 

“Nobody don’t have to shoot, by cripes!” he bawled. “We hain’t

goin’ to kill yuh. We’ll make yuh wisht, by cripes, we had,

though, b’fore we git through. Git to work, boys, ‘n’ gether up

some dry grass an’ sticks. Over there in them rose-bushes you

oughta find enough bresh. We’ll give him a taste uh what we was

talkin’ about comm’ over, by cripes! I guess he’ll be willin’ to

drive sheep, all right, when we git through with him.

Haw-haw-haw-w-w!” He leaned forward in the saddle and ogled the

bugkiller with horrid significance.

 

“Git busy with that bresh!” he yelled authoritatively, when a

glance showed him that the Happy Family was hesitating and eyeing

him uncertainly. “Git a fire goin’ quick’s yuh kin—I’ll do the

rest. Down in Coconino county we used to have a way uh fixin’

sheepherders—”

 

“Aw, gwan! We don’t want no torture business!” remonstrated Happy

Jack uneasily, edging away.

 

“Yuh don’t, hey?” Big Medicine turned in the saddle wrathfully

and glared. When he had succeeded in catching Andy Green’s eye he

winked, and that young man’s face kindled understandingly. “Well,

now, you hain’t runnin’ this here show. Honest to grandma, I’ve

saw the time when a little foot-warmin’ done a sheepherder a

whole lot uh good; and, it looks to me, by cripes, as if this

here feller needed a dose to gentle him down. You git the fire

started. That’s all I want you t’ do, Happy. Some uh you boys

help me rope him—like him and that other jasper over there done

to Andy. C’me on, Andy—it ain’t goin’ to take long!”

 

“You bet your sweet life I’ll come on!” exclaimed Andy,

dismounting eagerly. “Let me take your rope, Weary. Too bad we

haven’t got a branding iron—”

 

“Aw, we don’t need no irons.” Big Medicine was also on the ground

by then, and untying his rope. “Lemme git his shoes off once, and

I’ll show yuh.”

 

The bugkiller lifted his stick, snarling like a mongrel dog when

a stranger tries to drive it out of the house; hurled the stick

hysterically, as Big Medicine, rope in hand, advanced implacably,

and, with a squawk of horror, turned suddenly and ran. After him,

bellowing terribly, lunged Big Medicine, straight through the

band like a snowplow, leaving behind them a wide, open trail.

 

“Say, we kinda overplayed that bet, by gracious,” Andy commented

to Weary, while he watched the chase. “That gazabo’s scared

silly; let’s try the other one. That torture talk works fine.”

 

In his enthusiasm Andy remounted and was about to lead the way to

the other herder when Big Medicine returned puffing, the

bugkiller squirming in his grasp. “Tell him what yuh want him to

do, Weary,” he panted, with some difficulty holding his limp

victim upright by a greasy coat-collar. “And if he don’t fall

over himself doin’ it, why—by cripes—we’ll take off his shoes!”

 

Whereupon the bugkiller gave another howl and professed himself

eager to drive the sheep—well, what he said was that he would

drive them to that place which ladies dislike to hear mentioned,

if the Happy Family wanted him to.

 

“That’s all right, then. Start ‘em south, and don’t quit till

somebody tells you to.” Weary carefully let down the hammer of

his six-shooter and shoved it thankfully into his scabbard.

 

“Now, you don’t want to pile it on quite so thick, next time,”

Irish admonished Big Medicine, when they turned away from

watching the bugkiller set his dogs to work by gestures and a

shouted word or two. “You like to have sent this one plumb

nutty.”

 

“I betche Bud gets us all pinched for that,” grumbled Happy Jack.

“Torturing folks is purty darned serious business. You might as

well shoot ‘em up decent and be done with it.”

 

“Haw-haw-haw-w-w!” Big Medicine ogled the group mirthfully.

“Nobody can’t swear I done a thing, or said a thing. All I said

definite was that