CHAPTER VIII
A LAMB AMONG THE LIONS
"There y'are, mister. That's your place."
Stamford unlimbered his stiffened legs and raised himself in the buggy to look out over the valley of the H-Lazy Z.
"It's my place all right," he moaned. "I don't care what ranch it is. I didn't think Canada was so wide as that sixty miles of prairie. Sixty miles! Humph! I've a complete set of disarticulated bones that's ready to go into any witness box and swear it's at least umpteen million miles, and then some."
The youthful driver grinned.
"Oh, you'd get used to that. I 'member when I was raw——"
"Look here, young man, for about eighteen hours you've been rubbing my rawness into me. Lord knows you didn't need to! This rattly, lumpy, jumpy bone-shaker you call a carriage would make any body raw that's not made of cast-iron. How the dickens Cockney Aikens, to say nothing of his wife and the ranch outfit, can contemplate that sixty miles with sufficient equanimity to stick the job is beyond my limited experience."
"Golly, mister, Dakota Fraley—Two-Gun Dakota—bosses the outfit. He's fit for anything."
"Huh! Dakota seems to have a rep."
"Dakota Fraley," confided the driver, "is a gunman, a dead shot with either hand. He's lightning on the draw and was never known to miss his man. He's the toughest of the tough, a broncho-buster that takes all the prizes at the contests—and they say he's got so many men he lost track years ago. But, say, he's a dead-game sport. Ju hear about the police-court case—for shooting up the town that time?"
Stamford knew every word of it, but the lad's story was worth hearing, so he only looked interested.
"He just ponied up seventy-five simoleons without a wink. I think old Jasper was hoping he wouldn't have it, so he could send him down for a couple of months. Gee, I wouldn't send Dakota Fraley down, not by a long sight—least, not unless I was dying or something and wouldn't be there when he got out. I wouldn't fool with Dakota Fraley, no sir-ee!"
Stamford heard it with fitting solemnity.
"I suppose," he murmured, "that's how the books put it. I mustn't blame him."
"What d'you mean, mister?"
"Oh, excuse me, lad. Don't mind me when I get wandering. I'm often taken that way. The doctor says I'm not really dangerous."
"Don't you go to wandering about here or you'll get plumb lost."
Stamford cast a furtive eye back on the sixty miles and shuddered. Almost at daylight—and that meant about two-thirty a.m.—they had pulled out of Medicine Hat, for he was determined to run no risk of a night in the open. One he had had already, and was content. That sixty miles of prairie hung behind him like a pall, too oppressive to be relieved by its varied monotony. Here a line of unaccountable sand-buttes, there a landscape of rolling sweeps like the billows of a petrified sea, and sometimes a stretch of dullness that melted into the horizon uncountable miles away; and over all but the sand-buttes dead whispering grass, trembling in the blazing winds of midsummer, and a lifelessness that was uncanny.
His nerves were jangling still from the memory of it and, delighted though he was at the end of his journey, sundry and impressive qualms that resembled fear made him question his ability to cope with the problem he had set himself.
He raised himself on his arms before the house and tentatively extended one dead foot, drew in his breath painfully, and held himself erect by the buggy as both feet touched the ground.
"There are the stables, I guess," he pointed out. "I confess I don't know the proper thing to do with you. Will they feed you there or here in the ranch-house?"
The driver gathered up the reins.
"They ain't going to have a chance to keep me neither places. I'm not taking chances where Two-Gun Dakota is—me with no gun or nothing. These broncs are good for another ten miles. I got a friend over at the Double Bar-O. That's good enough for me."
He tumbled Stamford's suitcase out, chirruped to the horses, and rattled away eastward up the slope.
Stamford was suddenly oppressed with the loneliness of things. About the ranch-house was not a sign of life, and the ranch buildings two hundred yards away seemed to be equally deserted. He glanced hurriedly about and launched himself on the noisy gravel walk to the door. He was thrilled with the vastness of things, the tremendous silence, the frowning cliffs across the river, the pettiness of mere man; the gravel crunched pleasantly under him as he walked.
Receiving no reply to his persistent knocking, he lifted the latch. The evidences of recent life within pleased him mightily, especially the signs of a woman's presence. Mary Aikens' darning lay on the table where she had dropped it. A pile of folded newspapers and magazines covered the top of a smaller table against the wall, almost crowding off a smoker's tray and pipestand. The pictures on the walls, the shiny stove, the cushions piled with attractive abandon on couch and chairs, and, above all, a piano—Stamford felt his spirits rise.
Here were luxury and art as he had not before seen them on the prairie. Here was more than temporary makeshift. Here, he read, was a woman determined to make life out there, sixty miles from the nearest post office, railway station, and store, independent of its isolation and inconveniences.
He spied the open door to the kitchen and passed through, gathering from the array of tin boxes that his host and hostess were more than temporarily absent. It made him uncomfortable. His mind refused to grasp the full significance of the situation in which he found himself.
He was wondering vaguely what to do, when the outer door burst violently open, and he started like a thief caught in the act. Dakota Fraley was standing in the doorway, peering about with an evil frown. Through the kitchen doorway he caught sight of Stamford and strode quickly across the sitting-room.
"What you doing here?"
Stamford's attempt at propitiation was a wan smile; his heart was pattering uncomfortably.
"Just as you entered, Dakota, I was wondering the same thing. Mr. and Mrs. Aikens are not at home, I take it."
"And won't be for a week, maybe," barked Dakota, standing with legs wide, his thumbs caught in his belt.
"I gathered that from the lay-out."
"Tell 'em you was coming?"
"No. I knew the rule of the prairie."
"What rule?"
"That a visitor is always welcome. Have they been pulling my leg in that, too?"
Dakota thought over that a moment. His dislike for the little editor since the shooting-up scene, as well as for any visitor to the ranch, inclined him to kick Stamford off the place. But there was Cockney to reckon with.
"There's nobody here to welcome you—you can see that," he grunted.
"I was noting it," said Stamford quietly.
"Look here, you two-by-four, none o' your insults. This is a mighty big prairie to be alone on of a night ten miles from the next stopping place. There's nicer things for a tenderfoot, I warn you."
"But one of them isn't forcing myself on your society, Dakota Fraley. Yet, at the moment you're my host by proxy; my lips are sealed."
Dakota calmed. He was uncertain of the efficacy of anything but a gun in dealing with insults, but to draw on such a little tenderfoot was not to be thought of.
"Driver coming back?" he asked.
"By the way he galloped away I came to the conclusion he hoped never to have to," smiled Stamford.
"We'll lend you a horse."
"Thanks, but I can walk better without one."
"I see you walking ten miles at this hour o' the night, I do?" jeered Dakota.
"I wouldn't think of taking you from your own comfortable ranch for such a trifling spectacle. I won't mind if you take it for granted.... But perhaps a horse would be company. Lead me to it."
He pushed past Dakota and started toward the ranch buildings, the foreman following, obviously ill at ease. As they neared the cook-house door a sly smile crossed the latter's face. Several cowboys came out.
"I've found it, boys!" yelled Dakota, with a wide grin. "The only and original tenderfoot—guaranteed to eat peas with a fork, crease his pants every month, say 'fudge' when he means 'damn,' and take a saddle-horn for the back of a rocking chair. Only he doesn't like us. He's decided to move on. We're bold bad men. Alkali, trot out Joe-Joe."
Dakota's grin repeated itself in several faces. Stamford, aware that silence was safest, said nothing until Dakota was through.
"It's a shame to inflict myself to the extent of a horse on your already overtaxed hospitality," he said. "I promise to pay livery rates."
"Best put it on yer will, ole hoss, an' right now," drawled Bean Slade through the whiffs of a cigarette.
Stamford looked up with a glint of understanding.
"My executors will naturally pay my debts first—if my estate is equal to it."
"Yu seem to like Heaven best, kid," muttered Bean. "It's close up to here—the way yu're going."
"One might be forgiven for preferring the other place," replied Stamford. "At least there's only one devil there."
The cowboys grinned appreciatively.
"Best call it off, Dakota," suggested Bean.
Dakota frowned.
"If you geezers know of any quicker way of getting off the H-Lazy Z than by Joe-Joe, trot the idea out and let's look at it, and precipitous-like."
Joe-Joe, a mule-faced, conscience-stricken creature, with a scraggly tail that never stopped flicking, came humbly up at the rear of Alkali, bridle and saddle having been adjusted in the stables to an accompaniment of clatter that confirmed Stamford's suspicions. Still he had no thought of funking. He reached out for the rein.
His hand was pushed roughly aside, and Bean Slade vaulted into the saddle, cigarette between his lips. With a touching appeal in his wandering eyes Joe-Joe looked about on the unsympathetic audience, then, with a jerk that was startling even to see, he lowered his head, arched his back, and leaped straight up with stiffened legs, all part of one movement.
When he landed, every bone in Bean's lanky body rattled; and before they had time to rearrange themselves Joe-Joe was in the midst of a new gyration that loosened Bean's sombrero and cigarette.
The cowboys looked on, laughing, darting sly glances at Stamford to see how he was taking his escape. Dakota was divided between anger at Bean's interference, and satisfaction at the trepidation on the little editor's face. Joe-Joe continued to leap and twist and kick, Bean shouting encouragement and slapping the steaming thigh behind him; but when the horse straightened out for a run, his rider freed his feet and slid over his rump.
"Our show outlaw," he explained to Stamford, stooping to recover hat and cigarette. "Yu can see why yu'd need to say yer say in yer will."
Dakota accepted his defeat with a laugh. He had had his fun, and the sympathies of the outfit were against him.
"Any other ladylike nags about the place you'd like to break for us, my little man?" he gibed, clapping Stamford on the back. "The H-Lazy Z's at your disposal."
"Thanks, Dakota, then I'll stay a while."
Bean Slade shoved out a long, limp hand.
"Bully fer you! Yu've got the guts!"
"If you're going to kick about till the boss comes back," said Dakota, "you'd better shake hands with the bunch. Give your hoof to Alkali Sam. Alkali wasn't christened that—if he was ever christened at all. Somebody musta been reading a wild-West story and thought Sam looked like the leading villain. It's commonly hinted he christened himself. He's a would-be devil, a gen-u-ine bad actor—in his own mind. Alkali'd rather be called that than get his man on the draw. It saves a lot o' shooting—and it's less dangerous, a rep like that.
"And this one—where's your flapper, Muck?—he's Muck Norsley. Nothing's too dirty for muck—hence, Muck.
"The Dude there has been known to take a bath, comb his hair with axle grease, and change his shirt, all in the same year. Dude, you ain't doing us justice. Your neckerchief—well, it's a bit mussed, and a tailor might improve them chaps. Look nifty for the gent.
"General Jones derives his cognomen, so to speak—not from the army, bless you, no, but because he's generally drunk, generally loafing, generally a cuss. No one thinks his name's Jones, least of all the Police. And that's why General's so popular.
"Bean Slade, here, forced his name on us. He has to stand up seven times to make a shadow. When the wind's ripping things to kingdom-come we send Bean out to do the punching; he just turns sideways. Truth is, Bean's the lady-killer o' the bunch, that is, when Dude's not in glamorous garb. Oh, Bean's the sly one. There's only one lady in ten miles here, and Bean's her lady's-maid. Meaning nothing vulgar," he added hastily at sight of Bean's glowering brows. "Even in town Bean looks at every female as if she's val'able china and li'ble to be broke."
Stamford, conscious of his incapacity to reply in kind, solemnly shook the offered hands; which tickled them. The Dude first rubbed his palm on the side of his chaps, General Jones pumped his arm until his head shook, and Muck Norsley murmured something he'd heard somewhere about being glad to meet him. Bean Slade muttered a sheepish "Ta-ta!" and preferred his package of cigarettes.
The frowsy-headed cook thrust his face through the back doorway and announced that "chuck" was on, and, in the fading light of a late summer night—where the sun sinks about ten o'clock in mid-summer—Stamford seated himself before his first meal with a family of cowboys, a bit uncertain of the good taste of dining with an unwilling host, but determined now to carry the adventure to the end.
Throughout the meal, which seemed to Stamford's hungry but as yet fastidious taste to consist largely of pork and beans, with a later stratum of pie, there was a disposition among the others to show off, developing quickly, as Stamford's interest grew, to an effort at fun at his expense—not meanly, but with a twisted idea of sustaining their reputations before a tenderfoot. Stamford felt something of it but, not knowing how to receive it, concentrated on the meal. In that he unconsciously did well; so that when the pie was well washed down with strong coffee he remained the butt of their fun, but with less malice than before.
Muck Norsley's appetite seemed insatiable. When the others had drawn back and were smoking the package of cigarettes that was a special recognition of visitors, he continued to munch at the last piece of pie—his fourth, Stamford was certain—swallowing noisily from his coffee cup, the spoon held in the practised crook of his first finger.
"Muck always was delicate," said Dakota, by way of apology. "Don't you know, Muck Norsley, that it ain't good manners to eat when everyone's through?"
"Everyone ain't through," replied Muck. "I ain't. It mightn't be good manners, but it's good pie. Anyway, this is supper, not sassiety. If that isn't so, tell yer pal and fellow-villain to take his feet outen my coffee."
Alkali pushed his feet further on the table, brushing aside the dishes, and relit his cigarette.
"You big lubber, you!" yelled Muck. "Can't yer see this is comp'ny? You know yer dassent do it when we're alone, you—you insult ter decency!"
"Muck," warned Alkali gravely, tossing the match over his shoulder, "yo know how easy I'm roused. I've et bigger men'n yo fer breakfast."
"Alkali Sam," returned Muck, with equal gravity, "I ast yer tuh remove them blots on the innercent habits o' the H-Lazy Z seminary fer perlite young ladies. I don't often ask twice."
Alkali ostentatiously loosened his Colt.
"Here, Dakota, take this toy while I'm good-tempered. We ain't got time fer no funeral."
Stamford caught the wink that accompanied Alkali's toss of the revolver before his face, but it did not prepare him for the explosion that filled the room the instant it touched Dakota's hand. The bullet whistled so close that he ducked.
When he straightened, Dakota was looking into the smoking muzzle of the Colt with an air of intense surprise.
"Funny things, guns!" murmured the foreman.
"Darn funny!" growled Stamford, taking fresh hold of himself.
The smile he saw flitting over the faces of the cowboys had warned him that he was the victim of a bit of gun-play dangerous in the hands of less expert gunmen than Alkali and Dakota.
Muck Norsley swept his hand over the table, scooping up a sample of the flies that had all through the meal been robbing Stamford of some of his appetite, fished two from his coffee, and carried them to the door, where he gravely released them.
"I never did like the flavour of them flies," he muttered. "Now over in Dakota they come——"
During his absence at the door Alkali had liberally replenished the supply of flies in his cup, and Muck, noticing the disturbance in the liquid as he was about to swallow it, promptly despatched it into Alkali's face.
Before he could defend himself, Alkali was on his shoulders, punching wildly. Muck heaved himself to his feet, caught Alkali about the waist in a bearlike hug and, burying his face in his tormentor's stomach, seemed to be eating him alive.
Alkali beat himself free, howling all the time, and rubbed his stomach as if in terrible pain.
"Gi' me the gun, Dakota, gi' me the gun! Quick! I'll fill the ring-boned, wind-galled, spavined son-of-a-gun so full o' holes——"
"Alkali always was fluent," applauded Dakota.
The two men were fighting round and round the room, striking awkwardly, cursing, bunting with their heads. The others retreated to the two doorways and the corners, making no move to separate them. Stamford circled the table with bulging eyes; he had never seen anything so furious and brutal before.
Alkali fell over a chair, and Muck, seizing another, whirled it aloft. But Alkali squirmed beneath the table, grabbed Muck by the feet, and brought him down with a crash. Seated astride him, he leaned over his victim, punching with both fists. Muck struggled vainly for a moment, then seemed to give up in sheer weariness. Alkali gave a blood-curdling yell and jabbed his fingers at the helpless man's eyes.
In the dimming light Stamford seemed to see the horrible gouging as in a dream.
"Stop him! Stop him!" he screamed.
Alkali whooped his triumph and reached to the table for a knife. High above his victim he drew it back, gloating over the blow that would clench his victory.
"Not by a darn sight!" yelled Stamford, hurdling a fallen chair and kicking with all his might at the uplifted wrist.
Alkali uttered a howl of real pain and clambered to his feet. To Stamford's bewilderment Muck followed him, grinning, but sidling between the irate Alkali and his new foe. The injured man cursed volubly, holding his wrist with the other hand, then he plunged toward his gun, which lay on the table. But Bean Slade's long leg flashed out, and the gun rattled away to a corner.
"Yu got what was comin' tuh yu, you goat. Swallow yer medicine. Thought yu was puttin' it over on the li'l fellow, eh? Looks 's if he's got the last laugh."
"He's broke my wrist!" howled Alkali, hopping about.
"Get out!" jeered Bean. "Yer shure a soft bad-man. A li'l scrunt like him put yu out o' business! Haw! Haw!"
Stamford was squirming beneath a burden of chagrin at the revelation that all the time they had been poking fun at the tenderfoot.
"Funny thing, feet!" he murmured, contemplating his small shoes.
"Darn funny!" growled Dakota.
Stamford slept at the ranch-house and took his meals in the cook-house. It suited him perfectly—in spite of flies and mosquitoes. His search for health was accepted without question among cowboys who imagined that poor health was the curse of every tenderfoot, the dose being multiplied in one of such limited proportions. General Jones expressed the conviction that a month of roughing it would make him so eager for "home and mother" that bad health would look attractive by comparison; and Bean slyly suggested that what Stamford needed to buck him up was a few more rough-and-tumbles like the lickin' he gave Alkali.
Dakota looked into his guileless eyes and ridiculed himself for having tried to get rid of him.
Early next morning, before Stamford had made up for the sleeplessness of the first part of the night in a lone house on the prairie, surrounded by a million shrieking coyotes, a conference took place in the cook-house. The result of it was reported in part to him by the information that he and Bean Slade and the cook would have the ranch to themselves for the next few days. Stamford asked a few questions, but his ignorance of ranching deprived the replies of most of their significance. For four days, therefore, he and Bean developed the strange friendship that had commenced with Dakota's personal attack in the shooting-up of Medicine Hat, and had been strengthened by the scenes of his first evening on the ranch.
At the end of that time Dakota returned with three strange cowboys in the best of spirits. The three strangers, Stamford learned, were other members of the outfit whose work was in more intimate touch with the herds.
"Ten bucks for you, Bean!" Dakota announced jubilantly.
Stamford looked his enquiry.
"He's raisin' my wages fer lookin' after you," Bean explained; and everyone laughed.