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

always exacts a penalty from

us foolish mortals who would ignore the instincts she has wisely

implanted within us for our good.

 

“Maybe,” Weary began mildly and without preface, “you don’t know

this is private property. Get busy with your dogs, and haze these

sheep back on the bench.” He waved his hand to the north. “And,

when you get a good start in that direction,” he added, “yuh

better keep right on going.”

 

The herder surveyed him morosely, but he said nothing; neither

did he rise from the rock to obey the command. The dogs sat upon

their haunches and perked their ears inquiringly, as if they

understood better than did their master that these men were not

to be quite overlooked.

 

“I meant to-day,” Weary hinted, with the manner of one who

deliberately holds his voice quiet.

 

“I never asked yuh what yuh meant,” the herder mumbled, scowling.

“We got to keep ‘em on water another hour, yet.” He went back to

turning over the small rocks and to pursuing with his stick the

bugs, as if the whole subject were squeezed dry of interest.

 

For a minute Weary stared unwinkingly down at him, uncertain

whether to resent this as pure insolence, or to condone it as

imbecility. “Mamma!” he breathed eloquently, and grinned at Andy

and Pink. “This is a real talkative cuss, and obliging, too. Come

on, boys; he’s too busy to bother with a little thing like

sheep.”

 

He led the way around to the far side of the band, the nearest

sheep scuttling away from then as they passed. “I don’t suppose

we could work the combination on those dogs—what?” he considered

aloud, glancing back at them where they still sat upon their

haunches and watched the strange riders. “Say, Cadwalloper, you

took a few lessons in sheepherding, a couple of years ago, when

you was stuck on that girl—remember? Whistle ‘em up here and set

‘en to work.”

 

“You go to the devil,” Pink’s curved hips replied amiably to his

boss. “I’ve got loss-uh-memory on the sheep business.”

 

Whereat Weary grinned and said no more about it.

 

On the opposite side of the coulee, the boys seemed to be

laboring quite as fruitlessly with the other herder. They heard

Big Medicine’s truculent bellow, as he leaned from the saddle and

waved a fist close to the face of the herder, but, though they

rode with their eyes fixed upon the group, they failed to see any

resultant movement of dogs, sheep or man.

 

There is, at times, a certain safety in being the hopeless

minority. Though seven indignant cowpunchers surrounded him, that

herder was secure from any personal molestation—and he knew it.

They were seven against one; therefore, after making some caustic

remarks, which produced as little effect as had Weary’s command

upon the first man, the seven were constrained to ride here and

there along the wavering, gray line, and, with shouts and

swinging ropes, themselves drive the sheep from the coulee.

 

There was much clamor and dust and riding to and fro. There was

language which would have made the mothers of then weep, and

there were faces grown crimson from wrath. Eventually, however,

the Happy Family faced the north fence of the Flying U boundary,

and saw the last woolly back scrape under the lower wire, leaving

a toll of greasy wool hanging from the barbs.

 

The herders had drawn together, and were looking on from a

distance, and the four dogs were yelping uneasily over their

enforced inaction. The Happy Family went back and rounded up the

herders, and by sheer weight of numbers forced them to the fence

without laying so much as a finger upon then. The one who had

been killing black bugs gave then an ugly look as he crawled

through, but even he did not say anything.

 

“Snap them wires down where they belong,” Weary commanded

tersely.

 

The man hesitated a minute, then sullenly unhooked the barbs of

the two lower strands, so that the wires, which had thus been

lifted to permit the passing of the sheep, twanged apart and once

more stretched straight from post to post.

 

“Now, just keep in mind the fact that fences are built for use.

This is a private ranch, and sheep are just about as welcome as

smallpox. Haze them stinking things as far north as they’ll

travel before dark, and at daylight start ‘em going again.

Where’s your camp, anyhow?”

 

“None of your business,” mumbled the bugkiller sourly.

 

Weary scanned the undulating slope beyond the fence, saw no sign

of a camp, and glanced uncertainly at his fellows. “Well, it

don’t matter much where it is; you see to it you don’t sleep

within five miles of here, or you’re liable to have bad dreams.

Hit the trail, now!”

 

They waited inside the fence until the retreating sheep lost

their individuality as blatting animals, ambling erratically here

and there, while they moved toward the brow of the hill, and

merged into a great, gray blotch against the faint green of the

new grass—a blotch from which rose again that vibrant, sing-song

humming of many voices mingled. Then they rode back down the

coulee to their own work, taking it for granted that the

trespassing was an incident which would not be repeated—by those

particular sheep, at any rate.

 

It was, therefore, with something of a shock that the Happy

Family awoke the next morning to hear Pink’s melodious treble

shouting in the bunk-house at sunrise next morning:

 

“‘G’wa-a-y round’ ‘em, Shep! Seven black ones in the coulee!” Men

who know well the West are familiar with that facetious call.

 

“Ah, what’s the matter with yuh?” Irish raised a rumpled, brown

head from his pillow, and blinked sleepily at him. “I’ve been

dreaming I was a sheepherder, all night.”

 

“Well, you’ve got the swellest chance in the world to ‘make every

dream cone true, dearie,’” Pink retorted. “The whole blamed

coulee’s full uh sheep. I woke up a while ago and thought I just

imagined I heard ‘en again; so I went out to take a look—or a

smell, it was—and they’re sure enough there!”

 

Weary swung one long leg out from under his blankets and reached

for his clothes. He did not say anything, but his face portended

trouble for the invaders.

 

“Say!” cried Big Medicine, coming out of his bunk as if it were

afire, “I tell yuh right now then blattin’ human apes wouldn’t

git gay around here if I was runnin’ this outfit. The way I’d

have of puttin’ them sheep on the run wouldn’t be slow, by

cripes! I’ll guarantee—”

 

By then the bunk-house was buzzing with voices, and there was

none to give heed to Big Medicine s blatant boasting. Others

there were who seemed rather inclined to give Weary good advice

while they pulled on their boots and sought for their gloves and

rolled early-morning cigarettes, and otherwise prepared

themselves for what Fate might have waiting for then outside the

door.

 

“Are you sure they’re in the coulee, Cadwalloper?” Weary asked,

during a brief lull. “They could be up on the hill—”

 

“Hell, yes!” was Pink’s forceful answer. “They could be on the

hill, but they ain’t. Why, darn it, they’re straggling into the

little pasture! I could see ‘em from the stable. They—”

 

“Come and eat your breakfast first, boys, anyway.” Weary had his

hand upon the door-knob. “A few minutes more won’t make any

difference, one way or the other.” He went out and over to the

messhouse to see if Patsy had the coffee ready; for this was a

good three-quarters of an hour earlier than the Flying U outfit

usually bestirred themselves on these days of preparation for

roundup and waiting for good grass.

 

“I’ll be darned if I’d be as calm as he is,” Cal Emmett muttered

while the door was being closed. “Good thing the Old Man ain’t

here, now. He’d go straight up in the air. He wouldn’t wait for

no breakfast.”

 

“I betche there’ll be a killin’ yet, before we’re through with

them sheep,” gloomed Happy Jack. “When sheepherders starts in

once to be ornery, there ain’t no way uh stoppin’ ‘em except by

killin’ ‘em off. And that’ll mean the pen for a lot of us

fellers—”

 

“Well, by golly, it won’t be me,” Slim declared loudly. “Yuh

wouldn’t ketch me goin’ t’ jail for no doggone sheepherder. They

oughta be a bounty on ‘en by rights.”

 

“Seems queer they’d be right back here this morning, after being

hazed out yesterday afternoon,” said Andy Green thoughtfully.

“Looks like they’re plumb anxious to build a lot of trouble for

themselves.”

 

Patsy, thumping energetically the bottom of a tin pan, sent them

trooping to the messhouse. There it was evident that the

breakfast had been unduly hurried; there were no biscuits in

sight, for one thing, though Patsy was lumbering about the stove

frying hot-cakes. They were in too great a hurry to wait for

them, however. They swallowed their coffee hurriedly, bolted a

few mouthfuls of meat and fried eggs, and let it go at that.

 

Weary looked at then with a faint smile. “I’m going to give a few

of you fellows a chance to herd sheep to-day,” he announced,

cooling his coffee so that it would not actually scald his

palate. “That’s why I wanted you to get some grub into you. Some

of you fellows will have to take the trail up on the hill, and

meet us outside the fence, so when we chase ‘em through you can

make a good job of it this time. I wonder—”

 

“You don’t need to call out the troops for that job; one man is

enough to put the fear uh the Lord into then herders,” Andy

remarked slightingly. “Once they’re on the move—”

 

“All right, my boy; we’ll let you be the man,” Weary told him

promptly. “I was going to have a bunch of you take a packadero

outfit down toward Boiler Bottom and comb the breaks along there

for horses—and I sure do hate to spend the whole day chasing

sheepherders around over the country. So we’ll haze ‘em through

the fence again, and, seeing you feel that way about it, I’ll let

you go around and keep ‘em going. And, if you locate their camp,

kinda impress it on the tender, if you can round him up, that the

Flying U ain’t pasturing sheep this spring. No matter what kinda

talk he puts up, you put the run on ‘em till you see ‘em across

One-Man coulee. Better have Patsy put you up a lunch—unless

you’re fond of mutton.”

 

Andy twisted his mouth disgustedly. “Say, I’m going to quit

handing out any valuable advice to you, Weary,” he expostulated.

 

“Haw-haw-haw-w-w!” laughed Big Medicine, and slapped Andy on the

shoulder so that his face almost came in contact with his plate.

“Yuh will try to work some innercent man into sheepherdin’, will

yuh? Haw-haw-haw-w! You’ll come in tonight blattin’—if yuh don’t

stay out on the range tryin’ t’ eat grass, by cripes! Andy had a

little lamb that follered him around—”

 

“Better let Bud take that herdin’ job, Weary,” Andy suggested.

“It won’t hurt him—he’s blattin’ already.”

 

“If you think you’re liable to need somebody along,” Weary began,

soft-heartedly relenting, “why, I guess—”

 

“If I can’t handle two crazy sheepherders without any help, by

gracious, I’ll get me a job holdin’ yarn in an old ladies’ hone,”

Andy cut in hastily, and got up from the table. “Being a truthful

man, I can’t say I’m stuck on the job; but I’m game for it. And

I’ll promise you there won’t be no more sheep of that