Jefferson Creede bore down upon them slowly, sizing up the situation as he came, or trying to, for everything seemed to be at a standstill.
“Well?” he remarked, looking inquiringly from the judge to Hardy. “How about it?”
There was something big and dominating about him as he loomed above them, and the judge’s schoolboy state of mind instantly returned.
“I –– I really haven’t done anything about the matter, Jefferson,” he stammered apologetically. “Perhaps you will explain our circumstances to Mr. Hardy here, so that we can discuss the matter intelligently.” He looked away as he spoke, and the tall foreman grunted audibly.
“Well,” he drawled, “they ain’t much to explain. The sheepmen have been gittin’ so free up on our range that I’ve had a little trouble with ’em –– and if I was the boss they’d be more trouble, you can bet your life on that. But the judge here seems to think we can kinder suck the hind teat and baby things along until they git that Forest Reserve act through, and make our winnin’ later. He wants to make friends with these sheepmen and git ’em to kinder go around a little and give us half a chanst. Well, maybe it can be done –– but not by me. So I told him either to get a superintendent to handle the sheep end of it or rustle up a new foreman, because I see red every time I hear a sheep-blat.
“Then come the question,” continued the cowman, throwing out his broad hand as if indicating the kernel of the matter, “of gittin’ such a man, and while we was talkin’ it over you called old Tex down so good and proper that there wasn’t any doubt in my mind –– providin’ you want the job, of course.”
He paused and fixed his compelling eyes upon Hardy with such a mixture of admiration and good humor that the young man was won over at once, although he made no outward sign. It was Judge Ware who was to pass upon the matter finally, and he waited deferentially for him to speak.
“Well –– er –– Jefferson,” began the judge a little weakly, “do you think that Mr. Hardy possesses the other qualities which would be called for in such a man?”
“W’y, sure,” responded Creede, waving the matter aside impatiently. “Go ahead and hire him before he changes his mind.”
“Very well then, Mr. Hardy,” said the judge resignedly, “the first requisite in such a man is that he shall please Mr. Creede. And since he commends you so warmly I hope that you will accept the position. Let me see –– um –– would seventy-five dollars a month seem a reasonable figure? Well, call it seventy-five, then –– that’s what I pay Mr. Creede, and I want you to be upon an equality in such matters.
“Now as to your duties. Jefferson will have charge of the cattle, as usual; and I want you, Mr. Hardy, to devote your time and attention to this matter of the sheep. Our ranch house at Hidden Water lies almost directly across the river from one of the principal sheep crossings, and a little hospitality shown to the shepherds in passing might be like bread cast upon the waters which comes back an hundred fold after many days. We cannot hope to get rid of them entirely, but if the sheep owners would kindly respect our rights to the upper range, which Mr. Creede will point out to you, I am sure we should take it very kindly. Now that is your whole problem, Rufus, and I leave the details entirely in your hands. But whatever you do, be friendly and see if you can’t appeal to their better nature.”
He delivered these last instructions seriously and they were so taken by Hardy, but Creede laughed silently, showing all his white teeth, yet without attracting the unfavorable attention of the judge, who was a little purblind. Then there was a brief discussion of details, an introduction to Mr. Einstein of the New York Store, where Hardy was given carte blanche for supplies, and Judge Ware swung up on the west-bound limited and went flying away toward home, leaving his neighbor’s son –– now his own superintendent and sheep expert –– standing composedly upon the platform.
“Well,” remarked Creede, smiling genially as he turned back to the hotel, “the Old Man’s all right, eh, if he does have fits! He’s good-hearted –– and that goes a long ways in this country –– but actually, I believe he knows less about the cattle business than any man in Arizona. He can’t tell a steer from a stag –– honest! And I can lose him a half-mile from camp any day.”
The tall cattleman clumped along in silence for a while, smiling over some untold weakness of his boss –– then he looked down upon Hardy and chuckled to himself.
“I’m glad you’re going to be along this trip,” he said confidentially. “Of course I’m lonely as a lost dog out there, but that ain’t it; the fact is, I need somebody to watch me. W’y, boy, I could beat the old judge out of a thousand dollars’ worth of cattle and he’d never know it in a lifetime. Did ye ever live all alone out on a ranch for a month or so? Well, you know how lawless and pisen-mean a man can git, then, associatin’ with himself. I’d’ve had the old man robbed forty times over if he wasn’t such a good-hearted old boy, but between fightin’ sheepmen and keepin’ tab on a passel of brand experts up on the Tonto I’m gittin’ so ornery I don’t dare trust myself. Have a smoke? Oh, I forgot –– ”
He laughed awkwardly and rolled a cigarette.
“Got a match?” he demanded austerely. “Um, much obliged –– be kinder handy to have you along now.” He knit his brows fiercely as he fired up, regarding Hardy with a furtive grin.
“Say,” he said abruptly, “I’ve got to make friends with you some way. You eat, don’t you? All right then, you come along with me over to the Chink’s. I’m going to treat you to somethin’, if it’s only ham ’n’ eggs.”
They dined largely at Charley’s and then drifted out to the feed corral. Creede threw down some hay to a ponderous iron-scarred roan, more like a war horse than a cow pony, and when he came back he found Hardy doing as much for a clean-limbed sorrel, over by the gate.
“Yourn?” he inquired, surveying it with the keen concentrated gaze which stamps every point on a cowboy’s memory for life.
“Sure,” returned Hardy, patting his pony carefully upon the shoulder.
“Kinder high-headed, ain’t he?” ventured Creede, as the sorrel rolled his eyes and snorted.
“That’s right,” assented Hardy, “he’s only been broke about a month. I got him over in the Sulphur Springs Valley.”
“I knowed it,” said the cowboy sagely, “one of them wire-grass horses –– an’ I bet he can travel, too. Did you ride him all the way here?”
“Clean from the Chiricahuas,” replied the young man, and Jefferson Creede looked up, startled.
“What did you say you was doin’ over there?” he inquired slowly, and Hardy smiled quietly as he answered:
“Riding for the Cherrycow outfit.”
“The hell you say!” exclaimed Creede explosively, and for a long time he stood silent, smoking as if in deep meditation.
“Well,” he said at last, “I might as well say it –– I took you for a tenderfoot.”
CHAPTER III
THE TRAIL OF THE SHEEP
The morning dawned as clear on Bender as if there had never been storm nor clouds, and the waxy green heads of the greasewood, dotting the level plain with the regularity of a vineyard, sparkled with a thousand dewdrops. Ecstatic meadow larks, undismayed by the utter lack of meadows, sang love songs from the tops of the telegraph poles; and the little Mexican ground doves that always go in pairs tracked amiably about together in the wet litter of the corral, picking up the grain which the storm had laid bare. Before the early sun had cleared the top of the eastern mountains Jefferson Creede and Hardy had risen and fed their horses well,