“Not a darned thing—any more than what you all know,” testified Andy complacently.
It took a minute or two for that to sink in.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” breathed Irish.
“We did chain him to the anvil,” Andy went on. “On the way down, we talked about being in a hurry to get back to you fellows, and I told Mig—so Dunk could hear—that we wouldn’t bother with the horse. We tied him to the corral. And I hunted around for that bum chain, and then we made out we couldn’t find the padlock for the door; so we decided, right out loud, that he’d be dead safe for an hour or two, till the bunch of us got back. Not knowing a darn thing about him, except what you boys have told us, we sure would have been in bad if he hadn’t taken a sneak. Fact is, we were kinda worried for fear he wouldn’t have nerve enough to try it. We waited, up on the hill, till we saw him sneak down to the corral and jump on his horse and take off down the coulee like a scared coyote. It was,” quoth the young man, unmistakably pleased with himself, “pretty smooth work, if you ask me.”
“I’d hate to ride as fast and far tonight as that hombre will,” supplemented Miguel with his brief smile, that was just a flash of white, even teeth and a momentary lightening of his languorous eyes.
Slim stood for five minutes, a stolid, stocky figure in the midst of a storm of congratulatory comment. They forgot all about Happy Jack, asleep inside the house, and so their voices were not hushed. Indeed, Big Medicine’s bull-like remarks boomed full-throated across the coulee and were flung back mockingly by the barren hills. Slim did not hear a word they were saying; he was thinking it over, with that complete mental concentration which is the chief recompense of a slow-working mind. He was methodically thinking it all out—and, eventually, he saw the joke.
“Well, by golly!” he bawled suddenly, and brought his palm down with a terrific smack upon his sore leg—whereat his fellows laughed uproariously.
“We told you not to try to see through any more jokes till your leg gets well, Slim,” Andy reminded condescendingly.
“Say, by golly, that’s a good one on Dunk, ain’t it? Chasin’ himself clean outa the country, by golly—scared plumb to death—and you fellers was only jest makin’ b’lieve yuh knowed him! By golly, that sure is a good one, all right!”
“You’ve got it; give you time enough and you could see through a barbed-wire fence,” patronized Andy, from the hammock. “Yes, since you mention it, I think myself it ain’t so bad.”
“Aw-w shut up, out there, an’ let a feller sleep!” came a querulous voice from within. “I’d ruther bed down with a corral full uh calves at weanin’ time, than be anywheres within ten mile uh you darned, mouthy—” The rest was indistinguishable, but it did not matter. The Happy Family, save Slim, who stayed to look after the patient, tiptoed penitently off the porch and took themselves and their enthusiasm down to the bunk-house.
CHAPTER XVII
Good News
Pink rolled over in his bed so that he might look—however sleepily—upon his fellows, dressing more or less quietly in the cool dawn-hour.
“Say, I got a letter for you, Weary,” he yawned, stretching both arms above his head. “I opened it and read it; it was from Chip, so—”
“What did he have to say?”
“Old Man any better?”
“How they comm’, back here?”
Several voices, speaking at once, necessitated a delayed reply.
“They’ll be here, today or tomorrow,” Pink replied without any circumlocution whatever, while he fumbled in his coat pocket for the letter. “He says the Old Man wants to come, and the doctors think he might as well tackle it as stay there fussing over it. They’re coming in a special car, and we’ve got to rig up an outfit to meet him. The Little Doctor tells just how she wants things fixed. I thought maybe it was important—it come special delivery,” Pink added naively, “so I just played it was mine and read it.”
“That’s all right, Cadwalloper,” Weary assured him while he read hastily the letter. “Well, we’ll fix up the spring wagon and take it in right away; somebody’s got to go back anyway, with MacPherson. Hello, Cal; how’s Happy?”
“All right,” answered Cal, who had watched over him during the night and came in at that moment after someone to take his place in the sickroom. “Waked up on the fight because I just happened to be setting with my eyes shut. I wasn’t asleep, but he said I was; claimed I snored so loud I kept him awake all night. Gee whiz! I’d ruther nurse a she bear with the mumps!”
“Old Man’s coming home, Cal.” Pink announced with more joy in his tone and in his face than had appeared in either for many a weary day. Whereupon Cal gave an exultant whoop. “Go tell that to Happy,” he shouted. “Maybe he’ll forget a grouch or two. Say, luck seems to be kinda casting loving glances our way again—what?”
“By golly, seems to me Pink oughta told us when he come in, las’ night,” grumbled Slim, when he could make himself heard.
“You were all dead to the world,” Pink defended, “and I wanted to be. Two o’clock in the morning is a mighty poor time for elegant conversation, if you want my opinion.”
“And the main point is, you knew all about it, and you didn’t give a darn whether we did or not,” Irish said bluntly. “And Weary sneaked in, too, and never let a yip outa him about things over in Denson coulee.”
“Oh, what was the use?” asked Weary blandly. “I got an option out of Oleson for the ranch and outfit, and all his sheep, at a mighty good figure—for the Flying U. The Old Man can do what he likes about it; but ten to one he’ll buy him out. That is, Oleson’s share, which was two-thirds. I kinda counted on Dunk letting go easy. And,” he added, reaching for his hat, “once I got the papers for it, there wasn’t anything to hang around for, was there? Especially,” he said with his old, sunny smile, “when we weren’t urged a whole lot to stay.”
Remained therefore little, save the actual arrival of the Old Man—a pitifully weak Old Man, bandaged and odorous with antiseptics, and quite pathetically glad to be back home—and his recovery, which was rather slow, and the recovery of Happy Jack, which was rapid.
For a brief space the Flying U outfit owned the Dots; very brief it was; not a day longer than it took Chip to find a buyer—at a figure considerably above that named in the option, by the way.
So, after a season of worry and trouble and impending tragedy such as no man may face unflinchingly, life dropped back to its usual level, and the trail of the Flying U outfit once more led through pleasant places.
CHIP, OF THE FLYING U
CHAPTER I
The Old Man’s Sister
The weekly mail had just arrived at the Flying U ranch. Shorty, who had made the trip to Dry Lake on horseback that afternoon, tossed the bundle to the “Old Man” and was halfway to the stable when he was called back peremptorily.
“Shorty! O-h-h, Shorty! Hi!”
Shorty kicked his steaming horse in the ribs and swung round in the path, bringing up before the porch with a jerk.
“Where’s this letter been?” demanded the Old Man, with some excitement. James G. Whitmore, cattleman, would have been greatly surprised had he known that his cowboys were in the habit of calling him the Old Man behind his back. James G. Whitmore did not consider himself old, though he was constrained to admit, after several hours in the saddle, that rheumatism had searched him out—because of his fourteen years of roughing it, he said. Also, there was a place on the crown of his head where the hair was thin, and growing thinner every day of his life, though he did not realize it. The thin spot showed now as he stood in the path, waving a square