“We’ve got a place picked out,” said Cal, and led them a little distance up the slope, to a level spot in the shadow of a huge, gray bowlder. “That’s his headstone,” he said, soberly. “The poor devil won’t be cheated out uh that, if we can’t mark it with his name. It’ll last as long as he’ll need it.”
Only in the West, perhaps, may one find a funeral like that. No minister stood at the head of the grave and read, “Dust to dust” and all the heartbreaking rest of it. There was no singing but from a meadowlark that perched on a nearby rock and rippled his brief song when, with their ropes, they lowered the blanket wrapped form. They stood, with bare heads bowed, while the meadow lark sang. When he had flown, Pink, looking a choir-boy in disguise, repeated softly and incorrectly the Lord’s prayer.
The Happy Family did not feel that there was any incongruity in what they did. When Pink, gulping a little over the unfamiliar words, said:
“Thine be power and glory—Amen;” five clear, youthful voices added the Amen quite simply. Then they filled the grave and stood silent a minute before they went down to where their horse stood waiting patiently, with now and then a curious glance up the hill to where their masters grouped.
The Happy Family mounted and without a backward glance rode soberly away; and the trail they took led, not to the picnic, but to camp.
THE UNHEAVENLY TWINS
There was a dead man’s estate to be settled, over beyond the Bear Paws, and several hundred head of cattle and horses had been sold to the highest bidder, who was Chip Bennett, of the Flying U. Later, there were the cattle and horses to be gathered and brought to the home range; and Weary, always Chip’s choice when came need of a trusted man, was sent to bring them. He was to hire what men he needed down there, work the range with the Rocking R, and bring home the stock—when his men could take the train and go back whence they had come.
The Happy Family was disappointed. Pink and Irish, especially, had hoped to be sent along; for both knew well the range north of the Bear Paws, and both would like to have made the trip with Weary. But men were scarce and the Happy Family worked well together—so well that Chip grudged every man of them that ever had to be sent afar. So Weary went alone, and Pink and Irish watched him wistfully when he rode away and were extremely unpleasant companions for the rest of that day, at least.
Over beyond the Bear Paws men seemed scarcer even than around the Flying U range. Weary scouted fruitlessly for help, wasted two days in the search, and then rode to Bullhook and sent this wire—collect—to Chip, and grinned as he wondered how much it would cost. He, too, had rather resented being sent off down there alone.
“C. BENNETT, Dry Lake:
Can’t get a man here for love or money. Have tried both, and held one up with a gun. No use. Couldn’t top a saw horse. For the Lord’s sake, send somebody I know. I want Irish and Pink and Happy—and I want them bad. Get a move on.
W. DAVIDSON.”
Chip grinned when he read it, paid the bill, and told the three to get ready to hit the trail. And the three grinned answer and immediately became very busy; hitting the trail, in this case, meant catching the next train out of Dry Lake, for there were horses bought with the cattle, and much time would be saved by making up an outfit down there.
Weary rode dispiritedly into Sleepy Trail (which Irish usually spoke of as Camas, because it had but lately been rechristened to avoid conflictions with another Camas farther up on Milk River). Weary thought, as he dismounted from Glory, which he had brought with him from home, that Sleepy Trail fitted the place exactly, and that whenever he heard Irish refer to it as Camas, he would call him down and make him use this other and more appropriate title.
Sleepy it was, in that hazy sunshine of mid fore-noon, and apparently deserted. He tied Glory to the long hitching pole where a mild-eyed gray stood dozing on three legs, and went striding, rowels a-clank, into the saloon. He had not had any answer to his telegram, and the world did not look so very good to him. He did not know that Pink and Irish and Happy Jack were even then speeding over the prairies on the eastbound train from Dry Lake, to meet him. He had come to Sleepy Trail to wait for the next stage, on a mere hope of some message from the Flying U.
The bartender looked up, gave a little, welcoming whoop and leaned half over the bar, hand extended. “Hello, Irish! Lord! When did you get back?”
Weary smiled and shook the hand with much emphasis. Irish had once created a sensation in Dry Lake by being taken for Weary; Weary wondered if, in the guise of Irish, there might not be some diversion for him here in Sleepy Trail. He remembered the maxim “Turn about is fair play,” and immediately acted thereon.
“I just came down from the Flying U the other day,” he said.
The bartender half turned, reached a tall, ribbed bottle and two glasses, and set them on the bar before Weary. “Go to it,” he invited cordially. “I’ll gamble yuh brought your thirst right along with yuh—and that’s your pet brand. Back to stay?”
Weary poured himself a modest “two fingers,” and wondered if he had better claim to have reformed; Irish could—and did—drink long and deep, where Weary indulged but moderately.
“No,” he said, setting the glass down without refilling. “They sent me back on business. How’s everything?”
The bartender spoke his wonder at the empty glass, listened while Weary explained how he had cut down his liquid refreshments “just to see how it would go, and which was boss,” and then told much unmeaning gossip about men and women Weary had never heard of before.
Weary listened with exaggerated interest, and wondered what the fellow would do if he told him he was not Irish Mallory at all. He reflected, with some amusement, that he did not even know what to call the bartender, and tried to remember if Irish had ever mentioned him. He was about to state quietly that he had never met him before, and watch the surprise of the other, when the bartender grew more interesting.
“And say! yuh’d best keep your gun strapped on yuh, whilst you’re down here,” he told Weary, with some earnestness. “Spikes Weber is in this country—come just after yuh left; fact is, he’s got it into his block that you left because he come. Brought his wife along—say! I feel sorry for that little woman—and when he ain’t bowling up and singing his war-song about you, and all he’ll do when he meets up with yuh, he’s dealing her misery and keeping cases that nobody runs off with her. Why, at dances, he won’t let her dance with nobody but him! Goes plumb wild, sometimes, when it’s ‘change partners’ in a square dance, and he sees her swingin’ with somebody he thinks looks good to her. I’ve saw him raising hell with her, off in some corner between dances, and her trying not to let on she’s cryin’. He’s dead sure you’re still crazy over her, and ready to steal her away from him first chance, only you’re afraid uh him. He never gits full but he reads out your pedigree to the crowd. So I just thought I’d tell you, and let yuh be on your guard.”
“Thanks,” said Weary, getting out papers and tobacco. “And whereabouts will I find this lovely specimen uh manhood?”
“They’re stopping over to Bill Mason’s; but yuh better not go hunting trouble, Irish. That’s the worst about putting yuh next to the lay. You sure do love a fight. But I thought I’d let yuh know, as a friend, so he wouldn’t take you unawares. Don’t be a fool and go out looking for him, though; he ain’t worth the trouble.”
“I won’t,” Weary promised generously. “I haven’t lost nobody that looks like Spikes-er-” he searched his memory frantically for the other name, failed to get it, and busied himself with his cigarette, looking mean and bloodthirsty to make up. “Still,” he added darkly, “if I should happen to meet up with him, yuh couldn’t blame me—”
“Oh, sure not!” the bartender hastened to cut in. “It’d be a case uh self-defence—the way he’s been makin’ threats. But—”
“Maybe,”