“Done you good to drop in and hear ’em plan and figger. They was one happy family. How Sis Em’ly bragged about their hens layin’! In the spring we all held a bee and made their ’cequias for ’em. Baker, he loaned ’em a plow. They dragged big branches over the ground for a harrow. They could milk anybody’s cows they was a mind to tame, and the boys took to carryin’ over motherless calves for Mis’ Taylor to raise. Taylor, he done odd jobs, and they got along real well with their crops. They went into the second winter peart as squirrels.
“But, come spring, Sis wasn’t doin’ well. They had the Agency doctor. Too high up and too damp, he said. So the missus and Em’ly they went to Cruces, where Em’ly could go to school.
“That meant right smart of expense – rentin’ a house and all. So the Johns they hires out. John, Junior, made his dayboo as wrangler for the Steam Pitchfork, acquirin’ the obvious name of Felix.
“The old man he got a job muckin’ in Organ mines. Kept his hawses in Jeff Isaack’s pasture, and Saturday nights he’d get one and slip down them eighteen miles to Cruces for Sunday with the folks.
“Well, you know, a homesteader can’t be off his claim more’n six months at a time.
“I reckon if there was ever a homestead taken up in good faith ’twas the Butterbowl. They knew the land laws from A to Izzard. Even named their hound pup Boney Fido!
“But the old man waited at Organ till the last bell rang, so’s to draw down his wages, payday. Then he bundles the folks into his little old wagon and lights out. Campin’ at Casimiro’s Well, half-way ’cross, that ornery Freckles hawse has a fit of malignant nostolgy and projects off for Butterbowl, afoot, in his hobbles. Next day, Taylor don’t overtake him till the middle of the evenin’, and what with going back and what with Freckles being hobble-sore, he’s two days late in reachin’ home. For Lake, of Agua Chiquite, that prosperous person, had been keeping cases. He entered contest on the Butterbowl, allegin’ abandonment.
“Now, if it was me – but, then, if ’twas me I could stay away six years and two months without no remonstrances from Lake or his likes. I’m somewhat abandoned myself.
“But poor old Taylor, he’s been drug up where they hold biped life unaccountable high. He sits him down resignedly beneath the sky, as the poet says, meek and legal. We all don’t abnormally like to precipitate in another man’s business, but we makes it up to sorter saunter in on Lake, spontaneous, and evince our disfavor with a rope. But Taylor says, ‘No.’ He allows the Land Office won’t hold him morally responsible for the sinful idiocy of a homesick spotted hawse that’s otherwise reliable.
“He’s got one more guess comin’. There ain’t no sympathies to machinery. Your intentions may be strictly honorable, but if you get your hand caught in the cogs, off it goes, regardless of how handy it is for flankin’ calves, holdin’ nails, and such things. ‘Absent over six months. Entry canceled. Contestant is allowed thirty days’ prior right to file. Next.’
“That’s the way that decision’ll read. It ain’t come yet, but it’s due soon.
“This here Felix looks at it just like the old man, only different – though he ain’t makin’ no statements for publication. He come here young, and having acquired the fixed habit of riskin’ his neck, regular, for one dollar per each and every diem, shooin’ in the reluctant steer, or a fool hawse pirouettin’ across the pinnacles with a nosebag on – or, mebbee, just for fun – why, natural, he don’t see why life is so sweet or peace so dear as to put up with any damn foolishness, as Pat Henry used to say when the boys called on him for a few remarks. He’s a some serious-minded boy, that night-hawk, and if signs is any indications, he’s fixin’ to take an appeal under the Winchester Act. I ain’t no seventh son of a son-of-a-gun, but my prognostications are that he presently removes Lake to another and, we trust, a better world.”
“Good thing, too,” grunted Headlight. “This Lake person is sure-lee a muddy pool.”
“Shet your fool head,” said Pringle amiably. “You may be on the jury. I’m going to seek my virtuous couch. Glad we don’t have to bed no cattle, viva voce, this night.”
“Ain’t he the Latin scholar?” said Headlight admiringly. “They blow about that wire Julius Cæsar sent the Associated Press, but old man Pringle done him up for levity and precision when he wrote us the account of his visit to the Denver carnival. Ever hear about it, Sagittarius?”
“No,” said Leo. “What did he say?”
“Hic – hock – hike!”
II
Escondido, half-way of the desert, is designed on simple lines. The railroad hauls water in tank-cars from Dog Cañon. There is one depot, one section-house, and one combination post-office-hotel-store-saloon-stage-station, kept by Ma Sanders and Pappy Sanders, in about the order mentioned. Also, one glorious green cottonwood, one pampered rosebush, jointly the pride and delight of Escondido, ownerless, but cherished by loving care and “toted” tribute of waste water.
Hither came Jeff and Leo, white with the dust of twenty starlit leagues, for accumulated mail of Rainbow South. Horse-feeding, breakfast, gossip with jolly, motherly Ma Sanders, reading and answering of mail – then their beauty nap; so missing the day’s event, the passing of the Flyer. When they woke Escondido basked drowsily in the low, westering sun. The far sunset ranges had put off their workaday homespun brown and gray for chameleon hues of purple and amethyst; their deep, cool shadows, edged with trembling rose, reached out across the desert; the velvet air stirred faintly to the promise of the night.
The agent was putting up his switch-lights; from the kitchen came a cheerful clatter of tinware.
“Now we buy some dry goods and wet,” said Leo. They went into the store.
“That decision’s come!” shrilled Pappy in tremulous excitement. “It’s too durn bad! Registered letters from Land Office for Taylor and Lake, besides another for Lake, not registered.”
“That one from the Land Office, too?” said Jeff.
“Didn’t I jest tell ye? Say, it’s a shame! Why don’t some of you fellers – Gosh! If I was only young!”
“It’s a travesty on justice!” exclaimed Leo indignantly. “There’s really no doubt but that they decided for Lake, I suppose?”
“Not a bit. He’s got the law with him. Then him and the Register is old cronies. Guess this other letter is from him unofficial, likely.”
Jeff seated himself on a box. “How long has this Lake got to do his filing in, Pappy?”
“Thirty days from the time he signs the receipt for this letter – durn him!”
“Some one ought to kidnap him,” said Leo.
“Why, that’s illegal!” Jeff nursed his knee, turned his head to one side and chanted thoughtfully:
“Said the little Eohippus,
‘I’m going to be a horse,
And on my middle fingernails
To run my earthly course’ – ”
He broke off and smiled at Leo indulgently. Leo glanced at him sharply; this was Jeff’s war-song aforetime. But it was to Pappy that Jeff spoke:
“Dad, you’re a better’n any surgeon. Wish you’d go out and look at Leo’s horse. His ankle’s all swelled up. I’ll be mixin’ me up a toddy, if Ma’s got any hot water. I’m feeling kinder squeamish.”
“Hot toddy, this weather? Some folks has queer tastes,” grumbled Pappy. “Ex-cuse me! Me and Leo’ll go look at the Charley-horse. That bottle under the shelf is the best.” He bustled out. But Jeff caught Ballinger by the sleeve.
“Will