The Orphan by Clarence E. Mulford (best books to read now .txt) 📖

another place, and bring in the slush!” Then he turned to his tormentor: “You has allus got something to say about my business, ain’t you, hey?”

“Sic ’em, Humble!” said Silent Allen. “Go for him!”

From the gallery came sounds of calamity and then a mongrel dog shot out and collided with the table, glancing off it and under the curtain in his haste to gain the outside world. A second later the cook, his face fiendish, grasping a huge knife, followed the dog out on the plain. Those eating sprang to their feet and streamed after the cook, yelling encouragement to their favorite.

“Go it, Old Woman!” “’Ray for Cookie!” “Beat him out, Lightning!” and other expressions met Blake as he came up from the corral.

“Cook got ’em again?” he asked, elbowing his way into the house. “I told you to keep liquor away from him.”

“’Tain’t liquor this time; it’s th’ kioodle,” replied Docile Thomas as he led the way back to the table. “Him an’ th’ dog don’t mix extra well.”

Blake swept aside the blanket and saw The Orphan standing by the window and laughing. Turning, he disappeared into the gallery and soon returned with a tin plate, a steel knife, a tin cup and the coffee pot.

“Sit down–good Lord, they would let a man starve,” he said, roughly clearing a place at the table for the new arrival. “I don’t know how you feel,” he continued, “but I’m so all-fired hungry that I don’t know whether it’s my back or stomach that hurts. Take some beef and throw those potatoes down this way. Here, have some slush,” filling The Orphan’s cup with coffee. “This ain’t like the coffee the sheriff drinks, but it is just a little bit better than nothing. You see, Cook’s all right, only he can’t cook, never could and never will. But he’s a whole lot better than a sailor I once suffered under.”

“What’s the matter between you and Lightning, Lee?” asked Bud as the cook passed by the table on his way to the shack.

“Wouldn’t he drink yore slush? I allus said some dogs was smart,” laughed Jack Lawson.

Lee’s smile was bland. “Scalpee th’ dlog,” he asserted as he disappeared. “No dlamn good!” wafted from the gallery.

“Say, Humble,” said Silent Allen in an aggrieved tone, “the beef will wag its tail some night if you don’t shoot that cur!”

“That’s right!” endorsed Jack. “I’ll shoot him for a dollar,” he added hopefully. “The boys will all chip in to make up the purse and it won’t cost you a cent, not even a cartridge.”

“Anybody that don’t like that setter can move,” responded Humble with decision. “He’s a O. K. dog, that’s what he is,” he added loyally.

“Well, he’s a setter, all right,” laughed Silent. “He ain’t good for nothing else but to set around all day in the shade and chew hisself up.”

“He ain’t, ain’t he?” cried Humble, delaying the morsel on his fork in mid-air. “You ought to see him a-chasing coyotes!”

“I did see him chasing coyotes, and that’s why I want you to have him killed,” replied Silent, grinning. “His feet are too big. Every time he shoves his hind feet between the front ones he throws hisself.”

“What did he ever catch except fleas and the mange?” asked Blake, winking at The Orphan, who was extremely busy burying his hunger.

“What did he ever catch!” indignantly cried Humble, dropping his fork. “You saw him catch that gray wolf over near the timber, and you can’t deny it, neither!”

“By George, he did!” exclaimed Blake seriously. “You’re right this time, Humble, he did. But he let go awful sudden. Besides, that gray wolf you’re talking about was a coyote, and he would have died of old age in another week if you hadn’t shot him to save the dog. And, what’s more, I never saw him chase anything since, not even rabbits.”

“He caught my boot one night,” remarked Charley Bailey, reflectively, “right plumb on his near eye. Oh, he’s a catcher, all right.”

“He’s so good he ought to be stuffed, then he could sit without having to move around catching boots and things,” said Jim. “Why don’t you have him stuffed, Humble?”

“Oh, yore a whole lot smart, now ain’t you?” blazed the persecuted puncher, glaring at his tormentors.

“He can’t catch his tail, Silent,” offered Bud. “I once saw him trying to do it for ten minutes–he looked like a pinwheel what we used to have when we were kids. Missed it every time, and all he got was a cheap drunk.”

Humble said a few things which came out so fast that they jammed up, and he left the room to hunt for his dog.

“Any particular reason why you call him Lightning, or is it just irony?” asked The Orphan as he helped himself to the beef for the third time. “I never heard that name used before.”

“Oh, it ain’t irony at all!” hastily denied the foreman. “That’s a real good name, fits him all right,” he assured. Then he explained: “You see, lightning don’t hit twice in the same place, and neither can the dog when he scratches himself. And, besides, he can dodge awful quick. You have to figure which way he’ll jump when you want him to catch anything.”

“But you don’t have to remember his name at all, Stranger,” interposed Silent, who was not at all silent. “Any handle will do, if you only yells. Every time anybody yells he makes a crow line for the plain and howls at every jump. He’s got a regular, shore enough trail worn where he makes his get-away.”

Silence descended over the table, and for a quarter of an hour only the click of eating utensils could be heard. At the end of that time Blake pushed back his chair and arose. He glanced around the table and then spoke very distinctly: “Well, Orphan, get acquainted with your outfit.” A head or two raised at the name, but that seemed to be all the effect of his words. “The boys will put you onto the game in the morning, and Bud will show you where to begin in case I don’t show up in time. Better take a fresh cayuse and let yours rest up some. Don’t hurt Humble’s ki-yi and he’ll be plumb nice to you; and if Silent wants to know how you likes his singing and banjo playing, lie and say it’s fine.”

The laugh went around and all was serene with the good fellowship which is so often found in good outfits.

“Joe, I’ll bring the mail out with me, so you needn’t go after it,” continued the foreman as he strode towards the door. “That’s what I’m going over for,” he laughed.

“Lord, I’d go, too, if pie and cake and good coffee was on the card,” laughed Silent.

“We’ll shore have to go over in a gang some night and raid that pantry,” remarked Bud. “It would be a circus, all right.”

“The sheriff would get some good target practice, that’s shore,” responded Blake. “But I’ve got something better than that, and since you brought the subject up I’ll tell you now, so you’ll be good.

“Mrs. Shields has promised to get up a fine feed for you fellows as soon as Jim’s sisters are on hand to help her, and as they are here now I wouldn’t be a whole lot surprised if I brought the invitation back with me. How’s that for a change, eh?” he asked.

“Glory be!” cried Silent. “Hurry up and get home!”

“Say, she’s all right, ain’t she!” shouted Jack, executing a jig to show how glad he was.

“Pinch me, Humble, pinch me!” begged Bud. “I may be asleep and dreaming–here! What the devil do you think I am, you wart-headed coyote!” he yelled, dancing in pain and rubbing his leg frantically. “You blamed doodle bug, yu!”

“Well, I pinched you, didn’t I?” indignantly cried Humble. “What’s eating you? Didn’t you ask me to, you chump?”

“Hurry up and get that mail, Tom,” cried Jim. “It might spoil–and say, if she leads at you with that invite, clinch!”

Blake laughed and went off toward the corral. As he found the horse he wished to ride he heard a riot in the bunk-house and he laughed silently. A Virginia reel was in full swing and the noise was terrible. Riding past the window, he saw Silent working like a madman at his banjo; and assiduously playing a harmonica was The Orphan, all smiles and puffed-out cheeks.

“Well, The Orphan is all right now,” the foreman muttered as he swung out on the trail to Ford’s Station. “I reckon he’s found himself.”

In the bunk-house there was much hilarity, and laughter roared continually at the grotesque gymnastics of the reel and at the sharp wit which cut right and left, respecting no one save the new member of the outfit, and eventually he came in for his share, which he repaid with interest. Suddenly Jim, catching his spurs in a bear-skin rug which lay near a bunk, threw out his arms to save himself and then went sprawling to the floor. The uproar increased suddenly, and as it died down Jim could be heard complaining.

“–– ––!” he cried as he nursed his knee. “I’ve had that pelt for nigh onto three years and regularly I go and get tangled up with it. It shore beats all how I plumb forget its habit of wrapping itself around them rowels, what are too big, anyhow. And it ain’t a big one at that, only about half as big as the one I got for a tenderfoot up in Montanny,” he deprecated in disgust.

The outfit scented a story and became suddenly quiet.

“Dod-blasted postage stamp of a pelt,” he grumbled as he threw it into his bunk.

“The other skin couldn’t ’a’ been much bigger than that one,” said Bud, leading him on. “How big was it, anyhow, Jim?”

“It couldn’t, hey? It came off a nine-foot grizzly, that’s how big it was,” retorted Jim, sitting down and filling his pipe. “Nine whole feet from stub of tail to snoot, plumb full of cussedness, too.”

“How’d you get it–Sharps?” queried Charley.

“No, Colt,” responded Jim. “Luckiest shot I ever made, all right. I shore had visions of wearing wings when I pulled the trigger. Just one of them lucky shots a man will make sometimes.”

“Give us the story, Jim,” suggested Silent, settling himself easily in his bunk. “Then we’ll have another smoke and go right to bed. I’m some sleepy.”

“Well,” began Jim after his pipe was going well, “I was sort of second foreman for the Tadpole, up in Montanny, about six years ago. I had a good foreman, a good ranch and about a dozen white punchers to look after. And we had a real cook, no mistake about that, all right.

“The Old Man hibernated in New York during the winter and came out every spring right after the calf round-up was over to see how we was fixed and to eat some of the cook’s flapjacks. That cook wasn’t no yaller-skinned post for a hair clothes line, like this grinning monkey what we’ve got here. The Old Man was a fine old cuss–one of the boys, and a darn good one, too–and we was always plumb glad to see him. He minded his own business, didn’t tell us how we ought to punch cows and didn’t bother anybody what didn’t want to be bothered, which we most of us did like.

“Well, one day Jed Thompson, who rustled our mail for us twice a month, handed me a letter for the foreman, who was down South and wouldn’t be back for some time. His mother had died and he went back home for a spell. I saw that the letter was from the Old Man, and wondered what it would