BY BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR.
“Mormon Jack” stretched his generous length in the shade of the bed-wagon, thereby disturbing the sonorous slumbers of Johnny Layton, who muttered imprecations as he rolled over to make room.
“You blasted Mormon renegade,” he growled.
“Why don’t you go and lie down where you won’t be disturbin’ a fellow that has to stand guard to-night?”
“You’re a cantankerous cuss,” Mormon Jack calmly returned. “If I wasn’t a stranger in a hostile camp I’d climb your carcass for them insultin’ observations. Besides, it aint good for a kid to sleep too much. I don’t see how you got the heart to lay here snorin’ like a cayuse chokin’ down, when you could be sittin’ up enjoyin’ this here beautiful scenery that’s bein’ desecrated with bawlin’ cows and buckin’ bronks and greasy, old round-up wagons. You aint got no sense of nacheral beauty, Kid. You’re just about as ornery a varmint as old man Hartley, what once inhabited this same flat.”
“I’ve heard of him,” answered the now thoroughly awakened Layton. “He happened before my time, though. Were you in the country when they cleaned him out?”
“You bet I was!” Mormon Jack replied. “I knew him before he came over here, and I was here and saw his finish. There was high old jinks on this little green bottom that day.”
“So I’ve heard. He wanted to make a sheep-feedin’ ground of the east bench, didn’t he? How was it?” Layton propped himself up on his elbow to listen.
Mormon Jack settled his head comfortably against a rolled-up bed. He rolled a cigarette daintily and inhaled many breaths of smoke before replying.
“Old man Hartley was a bone-headed cuss,” he began, at length, “that wouldn’t learn better—even by experience. He was like a fool buck-sheep that persists in buttin’ everything that gets in his way, no matter how much he hurts his head. It aint the sheep’s fault; it’s the breed of him, and the way he was raised—and I guess that was the trouble with old Hartley.
“I come across him, first time, over in the Hash-Knife country, a little while after they quit drivin’ herds up the Long Trail. The railway come in, and you could bring a bunch of cattle from the Panhandle up there in a week—it took five months on the trail. Likewise, the railway brought farmers and pilgrims and woolly-backs by the train-load, and turned ’em loose promiscus on the country, where they made more trouble with their homestead rights and barb-wire fences than all the Injuns that ever run buffalo or lifted hair.
“It wasn’t long till there was heaps of trouble on the range. A tenderfoot would file on a claim, prove up, and as soon as he got his papers a big sheep outfit would own the land—you know how they do. Pretty soon the big sheepmen began to fence the water-holes, claim or no claim, and hell broke loose. After considerable killin' and burnin' and layin' for each other, they patched up a peace; the sheepmen that didn't get killed off stayed on the creeks where they was settled, and the cow outfits held what was left of the open range.
“That was where old Hartley got in his work. He had a bunch of sheep, and stay where he belonged he wouldn't. He'd slip out on good grass and fence up a spring or little lake that might be waterin' a thousand head of cattle. If a bunch of cows come in to water, he'd sic his dogs on 'em till they'd quit the earth. If a round-up swung his way he'd knock down his fence and move out. It was a big country and hard to watch, but they caught him once or twice, and drove him back where he belonged. They give him all the show in the world to be on the square, but he wouldn't—he wasn't built that way. He swore 'by God' that he had as much right to drive his blatin', stinkin' woolly-backs all over the range as the cowmen had to turn their longhorns loose on the country. He was a big, burly, noisy-mouthed cuss, with the muscle of a pack-mule and the soul of a prairie-dog. He was game, for all his low-down ways, but he went up against the cowmen once too often; a round-up headed him north one day with his sheep and a camp-wagon, and sent a couple of riders along to see that he kept a-goin'. Then they swung around to his home ranch and made a bonfire of it, to show the rest of the ca-na-na's that there'd be no monkey business on the Hash-Knife range.
“I didn't see nor hear of him no more till that fall. Then the layout I was workin' for bought a bunch of cattle over here and sent me to rep for 'em—same as I’m doin’ now. I was huntin’ for the Big Four wagon, which was supposed to be workin’ on the upper part of the White Mud, when I struck his trail. Comin’ north along the creek one day I turned a bend and come on a fellow talkin’ to a girl. It was Stella Hartley. I met her once at a dance on Powder River, and I knowed her the minute I laid eyes on her. She was about as nice a little girl as ever struck Custer County.
“I rode up and says ‘Howdy’ to her, and then I see it was Bobby Collins she was talkin’ to. I knew him, too—one of the whitest boys on earth, and the swiftest woddy that ever turned a cow. ‘Hash-Knife Bob’ they called him, over in Custer.
“‘M’ son,’ says I, ‘I’m sure glad to see you. But how’d you come to stray off into this wilderness?’
“He told me, then, the whole deal, Stella sittin’ on her horse tryin’ to smile, though she was nearer cryin’ than anything else; she’d been sheddin’ tears pretty considerable, as it was. Away along in the winter Stella ’d promised to marry him, but when the old man got to hear of it he just tore up the earth and swore he’d rather see her dead than married to a cowpuncher. Hash-Knife was for tellin’ him to go to the devil and gettin’ married anyway, but Stella wouldn’t have it that way. His wife bein’ dead, she was the only womankind the old man had, and she couldn’t bear to leave him like that. She said to wait awhile and the old man would come around. So in the spring Bob goes to the head of Powder River, and while he was gone the cow outfits put the run on the old man. When Hash-Knife comes back, Stella and the whole Hartley outfit had vanished plum off the earth.
“But Hash-Knife Bob was no quitter. He followed ’em up and located ’em on Milk River. Then he got a job with the Big Four, so’s to be near the girl. He had it figured out that when round-up was over that fall he’d take up a ranch on Milk River, marry Stella, and settle down. But he hadn’t more’n made his plan when old man Hartley breaks out in a fresh place.
“As I said before, old Hartley was a bull-headed old bucko. He was worse’n that; he was pig-headed and sheep-headed; he had the contrary stubbornness of all the no-account animals on God’s green earth. You’d ’a’ thought he’d ’a’ taken a tumble to himself after livin’ so long in a sagebrush country, and ’specially after bein’ run out of one part of it. But, no, sir! his way was the way. He wasn’t content on Milk River—he wanted a whole blamed county to graze over. So he went pokin’ around on the north side, and stumbled onto the Crossin’ here. It looked good to him, and without sayin’ a word to anybody but his herder—who was a knot-head like himself and crazy after Stella—he picks up his traps and sashays in here.
“There was probably seven or eight big cow outfits rangin’ east of the White Mud then, and they’d just got through havin’ a scrap with the sheep-wranglers, alongside of which the fuss in Custer County was about knee-high. Both of ’em had lots of men and money, but the advantage was on the cowmen’s side, for their boys was fightin’ for their livin’, for outfits they’d been raised with, and the sheepherders was in it for coin and because they didn’t know any better. Anyway, the sheepmen backed off after awhile and made peace—said they’d be good, they’d had enough. The cowmen made the White Mud the dead line; there was to be no sheep-camps on the creek or east of it. And the cowpunchers rode the high pinnacles to see that no sheep crossed the line.
“This here, Hash-Knife explained to me, was the way things stood: Hartley was located on the Crossin’ with a bunch of sheep—about twenty-five hundred head. He’d built him a cabin, and had likewise strung a four-strand barb-wire fence across the coulée that led down to the flat. And he was goin’ to stay there, he said. He had a squatter’s right, and if he wanted to live there and fence his place he’d do it. It was government land, and to hell with the cow outfits! He was from Missouri, he was! And up on the bench, about six or seven miles back, the Big Four and the Ragged H was swingin’ up to the Crossin’ with a beef herd apiece, and the wagon-bosses was mad, for they’d heard of old man Hartley.
“‘Old “Peek-a-Boo” Johnson’s runnin’ the Big Four,’ Hash-Knife told me. ‘I got him to let me ride ahead and see if I couldn’t talk some sense into the old man. But it’s no go. He’s got his neck bowed, and he’s fool ’nough to try and run a whizzer on Peek-a-Boo’s riders; they’ll clean him out if he does. I saw Stella ride off as I was comin’ down to the ranch, and when I got through with him I rambled down this way and found her. I want her to stay away from the flat for two or three hours, till the thing is settled one way or the other, but she’s bound to go home. So I guess we’d better be goin’. The wagons ought to hit the Crossin’ pretty soon.’
“We went up on the bench. Stella and Hash-Knife and me, and loped along toward the Crossin’. Pretty soon we could see the two sets of wagons and a bunch of riders headin’ for the creek, the two herds—big ones—trailin’ along behind, about a mile apart. At the head of the coulée I turned my string loose for the horse-wrangler to pick up. With Stella cryin’ and Hash-Knife tryin’ to comfort her, we swung down the coulée to the shack.
“When we got there we found the herder had brought the sheep in to water. They’d moved back off water and was bedded down, bunched close, about half-way between the cabin and the creek. There was three of ’em at the cabin; old Hartley, the herder, and a pilgrim that’d come out to work on the ranch.
“Old Hartley looked pretty black at us as we rode up, but he didn’t have time to say much before the wagons come rollin’ out the mouth of the coulée. They was almost at the house before he knowed it. Then he ducked into the cabin and come out with a Winchester across his arm. The outfit went past without battin’ an eye at him. They went round the sheep and started to pitch camp on the creek-bank. Then Peek-a-Boo and Tom Jordan, the Ragged H boss, come a-ridin’ up to the cabin.
“They was nice and polite about it. They told old Hartley that seein’ he was a stranger they thought he’d probably made a mistake and got over on the wrong side of the ridge. They didn’t want to make any trouble for him, but he’d have to take his sheep off the creek. Sorry to bother him, but it was range law.
“‘You can’t bluff me,’ says Hartley. ‘This here’s government land. I got as much right here as anybody. You dassent run me out.’
“Then old Tom Jordan tells him about the big scrap they’d had with the sheepmen, and how they’d agreed to stay the other side of the ridge, but the old bonehead kept a-shootin’ off about his rights, and how they couldn’t bluff him, till Tom got mad and rode off, sayin’ that he’d see his blasted sheep was across the ridge by sundown.
“Peek-a-Boo stayed talkin’ to him, tryin’ to persuade him to be reasonable, and showin’ him how foolish he was to run up against the cowmen after they’d fought a dozen big sheep outfits to a standstill and whacked up the range fair and square. They talked and talked, old Hartley gettin’ more and more on the peck. Neither of ’em noticed that the lead of the first herd had strung down the coulée—the cowpunchers had done business with the fence. There was probably a thousand head of big, rollicky steers bunched on the flat, and the rest of the herd was pourin’ out the mouth of the draw. Two point-riders was holdin’ ’em up so they wouldn’t scatter.
“Old Hartley saw ’em first. The sight of that big bunch of longhorns on what he called his land made him see red, I reckon. He shoved the lever of his gun forward and back, clickity-click, and started on a run for the bunch, hollerin’ as he went: ‘You can’t drive them cattle across my flat! I’ll kill you, by God, if you do!’
“Peek-a-Boo stuck the spurs in his horse, and started after him, callin’ to him to keep away from the herd. Hartley kept a-goin’ till Peek was about twenty feet from him, then he whirled with his gun to his shoulder, and cut loose, bang—bang! and Peek-a-Boo tumbled off his horse.
“Things happened then. Stella had started after the old man, but Hash-Knife grabbed her and made her stop. When old Hartley dropped Peek-a-Boo, Bob says to me: ‘Mormon, take Stella over to camp. I got to get Peek out of there. Maybe he aint killed, and them steers’ll be a-runnin’ over him in about ten seconds.’
“Hash-Knife had the situation sized up correct. I helped Stella onto her horse and started for the wagons. A lot of riders come like hell across the flat toward the herd, but they was too late to do any good. Just as Hash-Knife picked old Peek-a-Boo up and flopped him across his horse, Hartley begin to smoke up the two riders that was holdin’ the herd—which was bunched tight, ready to run. But he missed first shot, and when he fired the second time they was scuddin’ for the tail-end of the herd, layin’ low along the backs of their horses. As they run they jerked the slickers off the backs of their saddles, swingin’ ’em round their heads, and, yellin’ like Gros Ventre braves strikin’ the war-post, they rode into the herd.
“When them cattle surged first one way and then the other, and then swept across the flat, tramplin’ old Hartley down like he was a lone stalk of bunch-grass stickin’ up out of the prairie, Stella screeched and hid her face in her hands. But I watched; it was horrible and fascinatin’. You’ve seen the ice gorge in the Big Muddy, when it breaks up in the spring; it jams at some narrow place and piles up and piles up till the river below is bone dry. Then the weight of the water’ll bust the jam and there’ll be a grindin’, smashin’ uproar for a minute, and all of a sudden the river is flowin’ peaceful again.
“That was the way them cattle did. They passed over old Hartley like he was nothin’, and struck that bunch of slumberin’ sheep like a breakin’ ice jam. Two thousand strong they was, runnin’ like scared antelope, packed shoulder to shoulder, with horns and hoofs clatterin’ like a Spanish dancer’s castanets, and the gallopin’ weight of ’em made the flat tremble. This wise they passed over the band of sheep, wipin’ ’em out like the spring floods wipe out the snow in the low places, and thunderin’ by the round-up camp hit the creek with a rush that knocked it dry for a hundred yards. The lead of ’em had hardly got to the level before the riders was turnin’ ’em. In fifteen minutes them cattle was standin’ bunched on the flat, puffin’ and blowin’, the big steers starin’ round as if they were wonderin’ what had scared ’em. But they’d done the trick. There was no sheep left to quarrel over—nary one. It was an Alamo for the woolly-backs!
“After we’d found and buried what was left of old man Hartley, we moved up the creek to camp. The herder and the pilgrim hit the trail for Milk River. Poor little Stella sure felt bad on account of the old man, and the boys was all sorry for her. But she had Hash-Knife, and Peek-a-Boo—who wasn’t hurt bad enough to make him cash in—said he’d brand a hundred calves for her on the spring round-up. So I guess she was winner on the deal.
“That’s been eleven years,” Mormon Jack concluded, reminiscently, “and I aint been here since. I didn’t make no protracted visit the first time, but I want to tell you, m’ son, it was sure excitin’.”