A CORNER IN HORSES
It was dark night. The stay-herd bellowed frantically from one of the big corrals; the cow-and-calf-herd from a second. Already the remuda, driven in from the open plains, scattered about the thousand acres of pasture. Away from the conveniences of fence and corral, men would have had to patrol all night. Now, however, everyone was gathered about the camp fire.
Probably forty cowboys were in the group, representing all types, from old John, who had been in the business forty years, and had punched from the Rio Grande to the Pacific, to the Kid, who would have given his chance of salvation if he could have been taken for ten years older than he was. At the moment Jed Parker was holding forth to his friend Johnny Stone in reference to another old crony who had that evening joined the round-up.
"Johnny," inquired Jed with elaborate gravity, and entirely ignoring the presence of the subject of conversation, "what is that thing just beyond the fire, and where did it come from?"Johnny Stone squinted to make sure.
"That?" he replied. "Oh, this evenin' the dogs see something run down a hole, and they dug it out, and that's what they got."The newcomer grinned.
"The trouble with you fellows," he proffered "is that you're so plumb alkalied you don't know the real thing when you see it.""That's right," supplemented Windy Bill drily. "HE come from New York.""No!" cried Jed. "You don't say so? Did he come in one box or in two?"Under cover of the laugh, the newcomer made a raid on the dutch ovens and pails. Having filled his plate, he squatted on his heels and fell to his belated meal. He was a tall, slab-sided individual, with a lean, leathery face, a sweeping white moustache, and a grave and sardonic eye. His leather chaps were plain and worn, and his hat had been fashioned by time and wear into much individuality. I was not surprised to hear him nicknamed Sacatone Bill.
"Just ask him how he got that game foot," suggested Johnny Stone to me in an undertone, so, of course, I did not.
Later someone told me that the lameness resulted from his refusal of an urgent invitation to return across a river. Mr. Sacatone Bill happened not to be riding his own horse at the time.
The Cattleman dropped down beside me a moment later.
"I wish," said he in a low voice, "we could get that fellow talking. He is a queer one. Pretty well educated apparently.
Claims to be writing a book of memoirs. Sometimes he will open up in good shape, and sometimes he will not. It does no good to ask him direct, and he is as shy as an old crow when you try to lead him up to a subject. We must just lie low and trust to Providence."A man was playing on the mouth organ. He played excellently well, with all sorts of variations and frills. We smoked in silence. The deep rumble of the cattle filled the air with its diapason. Always the shrill coyotes raved out in the mesquite.
Sacatone Bill had finished his meal, and had gone to sit by Jed Parker, his old friend. They talked together low-voiced. The evening grew, and the eastern sky silvered over the mountains in anticipation of the moon.
Sacatone Bill suddenly threw back his head and laughed.
"Reminds me f the time I went to Colorado!" he cried.
"He's off!" whispered the Cattleman.
A dead silence fell on the circle. Everybody shifted position the better to listen to the story of Sacatone Bill.
About ten year ago I got plumb sick of punchin' cows around my part of the country. She hadn't rained since Noah, and I'd forgot what water outside a pail or a trough looked like. So Iscouted around inside of me to see what part of the world I'd jump to, and as I seemed to know as little of Colorado and minin'
as anything else, I made up the pint of bean soup I call my brains to go there. So I catches me a buyer at Henson and turns over my pore little bunch of cattle and prepared to fly. The last day I hauled up about twenty good buckets of water and threw her up against the cabin. My buyer was settin' his hoss waitin'
for me to get ready. He didn't say nothin' until we'd got down about ten mile or so.
"Mr. Hicks," says he, hesitatin' like, "I find it a good rule in this country not to overlook other folks' plays, but I'd take it mighty kind if you'd explain those actions of yours with the pails of water.""Mr. Jones," says I, "it's very simple. I built that shack five year ago,and it's never rained since. I just wanted to settle in my mind whether or not that damn roof leaked."So I quit Arizona, and in about a week I see my reflection in the winders of a little place called Cyanide in the Colorado mountains.
Fellows, she was a bird. They wasn't a pony in sight, nor a squar' foot of land that wasn't either street or straight up. It made me plumb lonesome for a country where you could see a long ways even if you didn't see much. And this early in the evenin'
they wasn't hardly anybody in the streets at all.
I took a look at them dark, gloomy, old mountains, and a sniff at a breeze that would have frozen the whiskers of hope, and I made a dive for the nearest lit winder. They was a sign over it that just said:
THIS IS A SALOON
I was glad they labelled her. I'd never have known it. They had a fifteen-year old kid tendin' bar, no games goin', and not a soul in the place.
"Sorry to disturb your repose, bub," says I, "but see if you can sort out any rye among them collections of sassapariller of yours."I took a drink, and then another to keep it company--I was beginnin' to sympathise with anythin' lonesome. Then I kind of sauntered out to the back room where the hurdy-gurdy ought to be.
Sure enough, there was a girl settin' on the pianner stool, another in a chair, and a nice shiny Jew drummer danglin' his feet from a table. They looked up when they see me come in, and went right on talkin'.
"Hello, girls!" says I.
At that they stopped talkin' complete.
"How's tricks?" says I.
"Who's your woolly friend?" the shiny Jew asks of the girls.
I looked at him a minute, but I see he'd been raised a pet, and then, too, I was so hungry for sassiety I was willin' to pass a bet or two.
