The Range Dwellers by B. M. Bower (best mystery novels of all time .txt) 📖

"I was headed that way," I smiled across at him, "but at the last minute I gave Montana first choice; I knew you were still here, you see."

He let go the bridle of the horse he was about to lead away to the stable, and limped around so that he stood within two feet of me. "Yuh want to—" he began, and then his mouth stayed open and silent.

I had reached out and got him by the hand, and gave him a grip—the grip that made all the fellows quit offering their paws to me in Frisco.

"Put it there, King!" I cried idiotically and as heartily as I knew how. "Glad to see you. Dad's well and busy as usual, and sends regards. How's your good health?"

He was squirming good and plenty, by that time, and I let him go. I acted the fool, all right, and I don't tell it to have any one think I was a smart young sprig; I'm just putting it out straight as it happened.

Frosty stood back, and I noticed, out of the tail of my eye, that he was ready for trouble and expecting it to come in bunches; and I didn't know, myself, but what I was due for new ventilators in my system.

But King never did a thing but stand and hold his hand and look at me. I couldn't even guess at what he thought. In half a minute or less he got his horse by the bridle again—with his left hand—and went limping off ahead of us to the stable, saying things in his collar.

"You blasted fool," Frosty muttered to me. "You've done it real pretty, this time. That old Siwash'll cut your throat, like as not, to pay for all those insulting remarks and that hand-shake."

"First time I ever insulted a man by shaking hands and telling him I was glad to see him," I retorted. "And I don't think it will be necessary for you to stand guard over my jugular to-night, either. That old boy will take a lot of time to study out the situation, if I'm any judge. You won't hear a peep out of him, and I'll bet money on it."

"All right," said Frosty, and his tone sounded dubious. "But you're the first Ragged H man that has ever walked up and shook hands with the old devil. Perry Potter himself wouldn't have the nerve."

Now, that was a compliment, but I don't believe I took it just the way Frosty meant I should. I was proud as thunder to have him call me a "Ragged H man" so unconsciously. It showed that he really thought of me simply as one of the boys; that the "son and heir" view-point—oh, that had always rankled, deep down where we bury unpleasant things in our memory—had been utterly forgotten. So the tribute to my nerve didn't go for anything beside that. I was a "Ragged H man," on the same footing as the rest of them. It's silly owning it, but it gave me a little tingle of pleasure to have one of dad's men call dad's son and heir "a blasted fool." I don't believe the Lord made me an aristocrat.

We didn't see anything more of King till supper was called. At Pochette's you sit down to a long table covered with dark-red mottled oilcloth and sprinkled with things to eat, and watch that your elbow doesn't cause your nearest neighbor to do the sword-swallowing act involuntarily and disastrously with his knife, or—you don't eat. Frosty and I had walked down to the ferry-crossing while we waited, and then were late getting into the game when we heard the summons.

We went in and sat down just as the Chinaman was handing thick cups of coffee around rather sloppily. From force of habit I looked for my napkin, remembered that I was in a napkinless region, and glanced up to see if any one had noticed.

Just across from me old King was pushing back his chair and getting stiffly upon his feet. He met my eyes squarely—friend or enemy, I like a man to do that—and scowled.

"Through already?" I reached for the sugar-bowl.

"What's it to you, damn yuh?" he snapped, but we could see at a glance that King had not begun his meal.

I looked at Frosty, and he seemed waiting for me to say something. So I said: "Too bad—we Ragged H men are such mighty slow eaters. If it's on my account, sit right down and make yourself comfortable. I don't mind; I dare say I've eaten in worse company."

He went off growling, and I leaned back and stirred my coffee as leisurely as if I were killing time over a bit of crab in the Palace, waiting for my order to come. Frosty, I observed, had also slowed down perceptibly; and so we "toyed with the viands" just like a girl in a story—in real life, I've noticed, girls develop full-grown appetites and aren't ashamed of them. King went outside to wait, and I'm sure I hope he enjoyed it; I know we did. We drank three cups of coffee apiece, ate a platter of fried fish, and took plenty of time over the bones, got into an argument over who was Lazarus with the fellow at the end of the table, and were too engrossed to eat a mouthful while it lasted. We had the bad manners to pick our teeth thoroughly with the wooden toothpicks, and Frosty showed me how to balance a knife and fork on a toothpick—or, perhaps, it was two—on the edge of his cup. I tried it several times, but couldn't make it work.

The others had finished long ago and were sitting around next the wall watching us while they smoked. About that time King put his head in at the door, and looked at us.

"Just a minute," I cheered him. Frosty began cracking his prune-pits and eating the meats, and I went at it, too. I don't like prune-pits a little bit.

The pits finished, Frosty looked anxiously around the table. There was nothing more except some butter that we hadn't the nerve to tackle single-handed, and some salt and a bottle of ketchup and the toothpicks. We went at the toothpicks again; until Frosty got a splinter stuck between his teeth, and had a deuce of a time getting it out.

"I've heard," he sighed, when the splinter lay in his palm, "that some state dinners last three or four hours; blamed if I see how they work it. I'm through. I lay down my hand right here—unless you're willing to tackle the ketchup. If you are, I stay with you, and I'll eat half." He sighed again when he promised.

For answer I pushed back my chair. Frosty smiled and followed me out. For the satisfaction of the righteous I will say that we both suffered from indigestion that night, which I suppose was just and right.

Our lazy land smiling and dreaming to itself had disappeared; in its stead, the wind howled down the river from the west and lashed the water into what would have looked respectable waves to one who had not been on the ocean and seen the real thing. The new grass lay flat upon the prairies, and chunks of dirt rattled down from the roof of Pochette's primitive abiding-place. It is true the sun shone, but I really wouldn't have been at all surprised if the wind had blown it out, 'most any time.

Pochette himself looked worried when we trooped in to breakfast. (By the way, old King never showed up till we were through; then he limped in and sat down to the table without a glance our way.) While we were smoking, over by the fireplace, Pochette came sidling up to us. He was a little skimpy man with crooked legs, a real French cut of beard, and an apologetic manner. I think he rather prided himself upon his familiarity with the English language—especially that part which is censored so severely by editors that only a half-dozen words are permitted to appear in cold type, and sometimes even they must hide their faces behind such flimsy veils as this: d——n. So if I never quote Mr. Pochette verbatim, you'll know why.

"I theenk you will not wish for cross on the reever, no?" he began ingratiatingly. "The weend she blow lak —— —— ——, and my boat, she zat small, she —— ——."

I caught King looking at us from under his eyebrows, so I was airily indifferent to wind or water. "Sure, we want to cross," I said. "Just as soon as we finish our smoke, Pochette."

"But, mon Dieu!" (Ever hear tell of a Frenchman that didn't begin his sentences that way? In this case, however, Pochette really said just that.) "The weend, she blow lak ——"

"'A hurricane; bimeby by she blaw some more,'" I quoted bravely. "It's all right, Pochette; let her howl. We're going to cross, just the same. It isn't likely you'll have to make the trip for any body else to-day." I didn't mean to, but I looked over toward King, and caught the glint of his unfriendly eyes upon me. Also, the corners of his mouth hunched up for a second in what looked like a sneer. But the Lord knows I wasn't casting any aspersions on his nerve.

He must have taken it that way, though; for he went out when we did and hooked up, and when we drove down to where the little old scow they called a ferry was bobbing like a decoy-duck in the water, he was just behind us with his team. Pochette looked at him, and at us, and at the river; and his meager little face with its pointed beard looked like a perturbed gnome—if you ever saw one.

"The leetle boat, she not stand for ze beeg load. The weend, she—"

"Aw, what yuh running a ferry for?" Frosty cut in impatiently. "There's a good, strong current on, to-day; she'll go across on a high run."

Pochette shook his head still more dubiously, till I got down and bolstered up his courage with a small piece of gold. They're all alike; their courage ebbs and flows on a golden tide, if you'll let me indulge in a bit of unnecessary hyperbole. He worked the scow around end on to the bank, so that we could drive on. The team wasn't a bit stuck on going, but Frosty knows how to handle horses, and they steadied when he went to their heads and talked to them.

We were so busy with our own affairs that we didn't notice what was going on behind us till we heard Pochette declaiming bad profanity in a high soprano. Then I turned, and he was trying to stand off old King. But King wasn't that sort; he yelled to us to move up and make room, and then took down his whip and started up. Pochette pirouetted out of the way, and stood holding to the low plank railing while he went on saying things that, properly pronounced, must have been very blasphemous.

King paid about as much attention to him as he would to a good-sized prairie-dog chittering beside its burrow. I reckon he knew Pochette pretty well. He got his rig in place and climbed down and went to his horses' heads.

"Now, shove off, dammit," he ordered, just as if no one had been near bursting a blood-vessel within ten feet of him.

Pochette gulped, worked the point of his beard up and down like a villain in a second-rate melodrama, and shoved off. The current and the wind caught us in their grip, and we swashed out from shore and got under way.

I can't say that trip looked good to me, from the first rod out. Of course, the river couldn't rear up and get real savage, like the ocean, but there were choppy little waves that were plenty nasty enough, once you got to bucking them with a blum-nosed old scow fastened to a cable that swayed and sagged in the wind that came howling down on us. And with two rigs on, we filled her from bow to stern; all but about four feet around the edges.

Frosty looked across to the farther shore, then at the sagging cable, and then at me. I gathered that he had his doubts, too, but he wouldn't say anything. Nobody did, for that matter. Even Pochette wasn't doing anything but chew his whiskers and watch the cable.

Then she broke, with a snap like a rifle, and a jolt that came near throwing us off our feet. Pochette gave a yell and relapsed into French that I'd hate to translate; it would