The Flying U Ranch by B. M. Bower (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .TXT) 📖

the saddle. And, though

Big Medicine was a strong man, the grip held firm and unyielding.

 

“You must think of the outfit, you know,” said Miguel, smiling

still. “There must be no shooting. Once that begins—” He

shrugged his shoulders with that slight, eloquent movement, which

the Happy Family had come to know so well. He was speaking to

them all, as they crowded up to the scuffle. “The man who feels

the trigger-itch had better throw his gun away,” he advised

coolly. “I know, boys. I’ve seen these things start before. All

hell can’t stop you, once you begin to shoot. Put it up, Bud, or

give it to me.”

 

“The man don’t live that can shoot at me, by cripes, and git away

with it. Not if he misses killin’ me!” Big Medicine was shaking

with rage; but the Native Son saw that he hesitated,

nevertheless, and laughed outright.

 

“Call him out and give him a thumping. That’s good enough for a

sheepherder,” he suggested as a substitute.

 

Perhaps because the Native Son so seldom offered advice, and,

because of his cool courage in interfering with Big Medicine at

such a time, Bud’s jaw relaxed and his pale eyes became more

human in their expression. He even permitted Miguel to remove the

big, wicked Colt from his hand, and slide it into his own pocket;

whereat the Happy Family gasped with astonishment. Not even Pink

would have dreamed of attempting such a thing.

 

“Well he’s got to come out and take a lickin’, anyway,” shouted

Big Medicine vengefully, and rode close enough to slap the canvas

smartly with his quirt. By all the gods he knew by name he called

upon the offender to come forth, while the others drew up in a

rude half-circle to await developments. Heavy silence was the

reply he got. It was as though the men within were sitting tense

and watchful, like cougars crouched for a spring, with claws

unsheathed and muscles quivering.

 

“You better come out,” called Andy sharply, after they had waited

a decent interval. “We didn’t come here hunting trouble; we want

to know where you’re headed for with these sheep. The fellow that

cut loose with the gun—”

 

“Aw, don’t talk so purty! I’m gitting almighty tired, just

setting here lettin’ m’ legs hang down. Git your ropes, boys!”

With one sweeping gesture of his arm Big Medicine made plain his

meaning as he rode a few paces away, his fingers fumbling with

the string that held his rope. “I’m goin’ to have a look at ‘em,

anyway,” he grinned. “I sure do hate to see men act so bashful.”

 

With his rope free and ready for action, Big Medicine shook the

loop out, glanced around, and saw that Andy, Pink and Cal Emmett

were also ready, and, with a dexterous flip, settled the noose

neatly over the iron pin that thrust up through the end of the

ridge-pole in front. Andy’s loop sank neatly over it a second

later, and the two wheeled and dashed away together, with Pink

and Irish duplicating their performance at the other end of the

tent. The dingy, smoke-stained canvas swayed, toppled, as the

pegs gave way, and finally lay flat upon the prairie fifty feet

from where it had stood, leaving the inmates exposed to the cruel

stare of eight unfriendly cowpunchers. Four cowering figures they

were, with guns in their hands that shook.

 

“Drop them guns!” thundered Big Medicine, flipping his rope loose

and recoiling it mechanically as he plunged up to the group.

 

One man obeyed. One gave a squawk of terror and permitted his gun

to go off at random before he fled toward the coulee. The other

two crouched behind their bed-rolls, set their jaws doggedly and

glared defiance.

 

Pink, Andy, Irish, Big Medicine and the Native Son slid off their

horses and made a rush at them. A rifle barked viciously, and

Slim, sitting prudently on his horse well in the rear, gave a

yell and started for home at a rapid pace.

 

Considering the provocation the Happy Family behaved with quite

praiseworthy self-control and leniency. They did not lynch those

two herders. They did not kill them, either by bullets, knives,

or beating to death. They took away the guns, however, and they

told them with extreme bluntness what sort of men they believed

them to be. They defined accurately their position in society at

large, in that neighborhood, and stated what would be their

future fate if they persisted in acting with so little caution

and common sense.

 

At Andy Green’s earnest behest they also wound them round and

round with ropes, before they departed, and gave them some very

good advice upon the matter of range rules and the herding of

sheep, particularly of Dot sheep.

 

“You’re playing big luck, if you only had sense enough to know

it,” Andy pointed out to the recumbent three before they rode

away. “We didn’t come over here on the warpath, and, if you

hadn’t got in such a darned hurry to start something, you’d be a

whole lot more comfortable right now. We rode over to tell yuh

not to start them sheep across Flying U coulee; because, if you

do, you’re going to have both hands and your hats plumb full uh

trouble. It has taken some little time and fussing to get yuh

gentled down so we can talk to you, and I sure do hope yuh

remember what I’m saying.”

 

“Oh, we’ll remember it, all right!” menaced one of the men,

lifting his head turtlewise that he might glare at the group.

“And our bosses’ll remember it; you needn’t worry about that

none. You wait till—”

 

The next man to him turned his head and muttered a sentence, and

the speaker dropped his head back upon the ground, silenced.

 

“It was your own outfit started this style of rope trimming, so

you can’t kick about that part of the deal,” Pink informed them

melodiously. “It’s liable to get to be all the rage with us. So,

if you don’t like it, don’t come around where we are. And say!”

His dimples stood deep in his cheeks. “You send those ropes home

to-morrow, will yuh? We’re liable to need ‘em.”

 

“by cripes!” Big Medicine bawled. “What say we haze them sheep a

few miles north, boys?”

 

“Oh, I guess they’ll be all right where they are,” Andy

protested, his thirst for revenge assuaged at sight of those

three trussed as he had been trussed, and apparently not liking

it any better than he had liked it. “They’ll be good and careful

not to come around the Flying U—or I miss my guess a mile.”

 

The others cast comprehensive glances at their immediate

surroundings, and decided that they had at least made their

meaning plain; there was no occasion for emphasizing their

disapproval any further. They confiscated the rifles, and they

told the fellows why they did so. They very kindly pulled a

tarpaulin over the three to protect them in a measure from the

chill night that was close upon them, and they wished them good

night and pleasant dreams, and rode away home.

 

On the way they met Weary and Happy Jack, galloping anxiously to

the battle scene. Slim, it appeared from Weary’s rapid

explanation, had arrived at the ranch with his horse in a lather

and with a four-inch furrow in the fleshiest part of his leg,

where a bullet had flicked him in passing. The tale he told had

led Weary to believe that Slim was the sole survivor of that

reckless company.

 

“Mamma! I’m so glad to see you boys able to fork your horses and

swear natural, that I don’t believe I can speak my little piece

about staying on your own side the fence and letting trouble do

some of the hunting,” he exclaimed thankfully. “I wish you’d

stayed at home and left these blamed Dots alone. But, seeing yuh

didn’t, I’m tickled to death to hear you didn’t kill anybody off.

I don’t want the folks to come home and find the whole bunch in

the pen. It might look as if—”

 

“You don’t want the folks to come home and find the whole ranch

sheeped off, either, and the herders camping up in the white

house, do yuh?” Pink inquired pointedly. “I kinda think,” he

added dryly, “those same herders will feel like going away around

Flying U fences with their sheep. I don’t believe they’ll do any

cutting across.”

 

“I betche old Dunk’ll make it interestin’ fer this outfit, just

the same,” Happy Jack predicted. “Tyin’ up three men uh hisn,

like that, and ropin’ their tent and draggin’ it off, ain’t

things he’ll pass up. He’ll have a possy out here—you see if he

don’t!”

 

“In that case, I’ll be sorry for you, Happy,” purred Miguel close

beside him. “You’re the only one in the outfit that looks capable

of such a vile deed.”

 

“Oh, Dunk won’t do anything,” Weary said cheerfully. “You’ll have

to take those guns back, though. They might take a notion to call

that stealing!”

 

“You forget,” the Native Son reminded calmly, “that we left them

three good ropes in exchange.”

 

Whereupon the Happy Family laughed and went to offer their

unsought sympathy to Slim.

 

CHAPTER X. The Happy Family Herd Sheep

 

The boys of the Flying U had many faults in common, aside from

certain individual frailties; one of their chief weaknesses was

over-confidence in their own ability to cope with any situation

which might arise, unexpectedly or otherwise, and a belief that

others felt that same confidence in them, and that enemies were

wont to sit a long time counting the cost before venturing to

offer too great an affront. Also they believed—and made it

manifest in their conversation—that they could even bring the

Old Man back to health if they only had him on the ranch where

they could get at him. They maligned the hospitals and Chicago

doctors most unjustly, and were agreed that all he needed was to

be back on the ranch where somebody could look after him right.

They asserted that, if they ever got tired of living and wanted

to cash in without using a gun or anything, they’d go to a

hospital and tell the doctors to turn loose and try to cure them

of something.

 

This by way of illustration; also as an explanation of their

sleeping soundly that night, instead of watching for some hostile

demonstration on the part of the Dot outfit. To a man—one never

counted Happy Jack’s prophecies of disaster as being anything

more than a personal deformity of thought—they were positive in

their belief that the Dot sheepherders would be very, very

careful not to provoke the Happy Family to further manifestations

of disapproval. They knew what they’d get, if they tried any more

funny business, and they’d be mighty careful where they drove

their sheep after this.

 

So, with the comfortable glow of victory in their souls, they

laid them down, and, when the animated discussion of that night’s

adventure flagged, as their tongues grew sleep-clogged and their

eyelids drooped, they slept in peace; save when Slim, awakened by

the soreness of his leg, grunted a malediction or two before he

began snoring again.

 

They rose and ate their breakfast in a fair humor with the world.

One grows accustomed to the thought of sickness, even when it

strikes close to the affections, and, with the resilience of

youth and hope, life adjusts itself to make room for the specter

of fear, so that it does not crowd unduly, but stands

half-forgotten in the background of one’s thoughts. For that

reason they no longer spoke soberly because of the Old