At three o’clock Pink, from long habit, opened his eyes to the dull gray of early morning. The air in the tent was clammy and chill and filled with the audible breathing of a dozen sleeping men; overhead the canvas was dull yellow and sodden with the steady drip, drip, drop of rain. There would be no starting out at sunrise—and perhaps there would be no starting at all, he thought with lazy disappointment, and turned on his side for another nap. His glance fell upon Weary’s up-turned, slumber-blank face, and his memory reverted revengefully to the baiting of the night before. He would fix Weary for that, he told himself spitefully; mentally measured a perpendicular line from Weary’s face to the roof, reached up and drew his finger firmly down along the canvas for a good ten inches—and if you don’t know why, try it yourself some time in a tent with the rain pouring down upon the land. As if that were not enough he repeated the operation again and again, each time in a fresh place, until the rain came through beautifully all over the bed of Weary. Then he lay down, cuddled the blankets up to his ears, closed his eyes and composed himself to sleep, at peace with his conscience and the world—and it did not disturb his self-satisfaction when Weary presently awoke, moved sleepily away from one drip and directly under another, shifted again, swore a little in an undertone and at last was forced to take refuge under his tarpaulin. After that Pink went blissfully off to dreamland.
At four o’clock it still rained dismally—and the Happy Family, waking unhappily one after another, remembered that this was the Fourth that they had worked and waited for so long, “swore a prayer or two and slept again.” At six the sun was shining, and Jack Bates, first realizing the blessed fact, called the others jubilantly.
Weary sat up and observed darkly that he wished he knew what son-of-a-gun got the tent to leaking over him, and eyed Pink suspiciously; but Pink only knuckled his eyes like a sleepy baby and asked if it rained in the night, and said he had been dead to the world. Happy Jack came blundering under the ban by asking Weary to remember that he told him it would rain. As he slept beside Weary, his guilt was certain and his punishment, Weary promised himself, would be sure.
Then they went out and faced the clean-washed prairie land, filled their lungs to the bottom with sweet, wine-like air, and asked one another why in the dickens the night-hawk wasn’t on hand with the cavvy, so they could get ready to start.
At nine o’clock, had you wandered that way, you would have seen the Happy Family—a clean-shaven, holiday-garbed, resplendent Happy Family—roosting disconsolately wherever was a place clean enough to sit, looking wistfully away to the skyline.
They should, by now, have been at the picnic, and every man of them realized the fact keenly. They were ready, but they were afoot; the nighthawk had not put in an appearance with the saddle bunch, and there was not a horse in camp that they might go in search of him. With no herd to hold, they had not deemed it necessary to keep up any horses, and they were bewailing the fact that they had not forseen such an emergency—though Happy Jack did assert that he had all along expected it.
“By golly, I’ll strike out afoot and hunt him up, if he don’t heave in sight mighty suddent,” threatened Slim passionately, after a long, dismal silence. “By golly, he’ll wisht I hadn’t, too.”
Cal looked up from studying pensively his patent leathers. “Go on, Slim, and round him up. This is sure getting hilarious—a fine way to spend the Fourth!”
“Maybe that festive bunch that held up the Lewistown Bank, day before yesterday, came along and laid the hawk away on the hillside so they could help themselves to fresh horses,” hazarded Jack Bates, in the hope that Happy Jack would seize the opening to prophesy a new disaster.
“I betche that’s what’s happened, all right,” said Happy, rising to the bait. “I betche yuh won’t see no horses t’day—ner no night-hawk, neither.”
The Happy Family looked at one another and grinned.
“Who’ll stir the lemonade and help pass the sandwiches?” asked Pink, sadly. “Who’ll push, when the school-ma’am wants to swing? Or Len Adams? or—”
“Oh, saw off!” Weary implored. “We can think up troubles enough, Cadwolloper, without any help from you.”
“Well, I guess your troubles are about over, cully—I can hear ’em coming.” Pink picked up his rope and started for the horse corral as the belated cavvy came jingling around the nose of the nearest hill. The Happy Family brightened perceptibly; after all, they could be at the picnic by noon—if they hurried. Their thoughts flew to the crowd—and to the girls in frilly dresses—under the pine trees in a certain canyon just where the Bear Paws reach lazily out to shake hands with the prairie land.
Up on the high level, with the sun hot against their right cheeks and a lazy breeze flipping neckerchief ends against their smiling lips, the world seemed very good, and a jolly place to live in, and there was no such thing as trouble anywhere. Even Happy Jack was betrayed into expecting much pleasure and no misfortune, and whistled while he rode.
Five miles slipped behind them easily—so easily that their horses perked ears and tugged hard against the bits. The next five were rougher, for they had left the trail and struck out across a rough bit of barrenness on a short cut to the ford in Sheep Coulee. All the little gullies and washouts were swept clean and smooth with the storm, and the grass roots showed white where the soil had washed away. They hoped the rain had not reached to the mountains and spoiled the picnic grounds, and wondered what time the girls would have dinner ready.
So they rode down the steep trail into Sheep Coulee, galloped a quarter mile and stopped, amazed, at the ford. The creek was running bank full; more, it was churning along like a mill-race, yellow with the clay it carried and necked with great patches of dirty foam.
“I guess here’s where we don’t cross,” said Weary, whistling mild dismay.
“Now, wouldn’t that jostle yuh?” asked Pink, of no one in particular.
“By golly, the lemonade’ll be cold, and so’ll the san’wiches, before we git there,” put in Slim, with one of his sporadic efforts to be funny. “We got t’ go back.”
“Back nothing,” chorused five outraged voices. “We’ll hunt some other crossing.”
“Down the creek a piece—yuh mind where that old sandbar runs half across? We’ll try that.” Weary’s tone was hopeful, and they turned and followed him.
Half a mile along the raging little creek they galloped, with no place where they dared to cross. Then, loping around a willow-fringed bend, Weary and Pink, who were ahead, drew their horses back upon their haunches. They had all but run over a huddle of humanity lying in the fringe of weeds and tall grasses that grew next the willows.
“What in thunder—” began Cal, pulling up. They slid off their horses and bent curiously over the figure. Weary turned it investigatively by a shoulder. The figure stirred, and groaned. “It’s somebody hurt; take a hand here, and help carry him out where the sun shines. He’s wet to the skin,” commanded Weary sharply.
When they lifted him he opened his eyes and looked at them; while they carried him tenderly out from the wet tangle and into the warmth of the sun, he set his teeth against the groans that would come. They stood around him uneasily and looked down at him. He was young, like themselves, and he was a stranger; also, he was dressed like a cowboy, in chaps, high-heeled boots and silver-mounted spurs. The chaps were sodden and heavy with water, as was the rest of his clothing.
“He must uh laid out in all that storm, last night,” observed Cal, in a subdued voice. “He—”
“Somebody better ride back and have the bed wagon brought up, so we can haul him to