CHAPTER XV. Oleson

"Say, ain't that Andy and Mig following along behind?" Cal asked after a minute of watching the approach. "Sure, it is. Now what--"

"They're drivin' 'em, by cripes!" Big Medicine, under the stress of the moment, returned to his usual bellowing tone. "Who's that tall, lanky feller in the lead? I don't call to mind ever seem him before. Them four herders I'd know a mile off."

"That?" Weary shaded his eyes with his hat-brim, against the slant rays of the westering sun. "That's Oleson, Dunk's partner."

"His mother'd be a-weepin'," Big Medicine observed bodefully, "if she knowed what was due to happen to her son right away quick. Must be him that done the shootin'."

They came on steadily, the four herders and Oleson walking reluctantly ahead, with Andy Green and the Native Son riding relentlessly in the rear, their guns held unwaveringly in a line with the backs of their captives. Andy was carrying a rifle, evidently taken from one of the men--Oleson, they judged for the guilty one. Half the distance was covered when Andy was seen to turn his head and speak briefly with the Native Son, after which he lunged past the captives and galloped up to the waiting group. His quick eye sought first the face of Happy Jack in anxious questioning; then, miserably, he searched the faces of his friends.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed mechanically, dismounted and bent over the figure on the ground. For a long minute he knelt there; he laid his ear close to Happy Jack's mouth, took off his glove and laid his hand over Happy's heart; reached up, twitched off his neckerchief, shook out the creases and spread it reverently over Happy Jack's face. He stood up then and spoke slowly, his eyes fixed upon the stumbling approach of the captives.

"Pink told us Happy had been shot, so we rode around and come up behind 'em. It was a cinch. And--say, boys, we've got the Dots in a pocket.

They've got to eat outa our hands, now. So don't think about--our own feelings, or about--" he stopped abruptly and let a downward glance finish the sentence. "We've got to keep our own hands clean, and--now don't let your fingers get the itch, Bud!" This, because of certain manifestations of a murderous intent on the part of Big Medicine.

"Oh, it's all right to talk, if yuh feel like talking," Big Medicine retorted savagely. "I don't." He made a catlike spring at the foremost man, who happened to be Oleson, and got a merciless grip with his fingers on his throat, snarling like a predatory animal over its kill.

From behind, Andy, with Weary to help, pulled him off.

"I didn't mean to--to kill anybody," gasped Oleson, pasty white. "I heard a lot of shooting, and so I ran up the hill--and the herders came running toward me, and I thought I was defending my property and men. I had a right to defend--"

"Defend h.e.l.l!" Big Medicine writhed in the restraining grasp of those who held him. "Look at that there! As good hearted a boy as ever turned a cow! Never harmed a soul in 'is life. Is all your dirty, stinkin'

sheep, an' all your lousy herders, worth that boy's life? Yuh shot 'im down like a dog--lemme go, boys." His voice was husky. "Lemme tromp the life outa him."

"I thought you were killing my men, or I never--I never meant to--to kill--" Oleson, shaking till he could scarcely stand, broke down and wept; wept pitiably, hysterically, as men of a certain fiber will weep when black tragedy confronts them all unawares. He cowered miserably before the Happy Family, his face hidden behind his two hands.

"Boys, I want to say a word or two. Come over here." Andy's voice, quiet as ever, contrasted strangely with the man's sobbing. He led them back a few paces--Weary, Cal, Big Medicine and Slim, and spoke hurriedly. The Native Son eyed them sidelong from his horse, but he was careful to keep Oleson covered with his gun--and the herders too, although they were unarmed. Once or twice he glanced at that long, ungainly figure in the gra.s.s with the handkerchief of Andy Green hiding the face except where a corner, fluttering in the faint breeze which came creeping out of the west, lifted now and then and gave a glimpse of sunbrowned throat and a quiet chin and mouth.

"Quit that blubbering, Oleson, and listen here." Andys voice broke relentlessly upon the other's woe. "All these boys want to hang yuh without any red tape; far as I'm concerned, I'm dead willing. But we're going to give yuh a chance. Your partner, as we told yuh coming over, we've got the dead immortal cinch on, right now. And--well you can see what you're up against. But we'll give yuh a chance. Have you got any family?"

Oleson, trying to pull himself together, shook his head.

"Well, then, you can get rid of them sheep, can't yuh? Sell 'em, ship 'em outa here--we don't give a darn what yuh do, only so yuh get 'em off the range."

"Y-yes, I'll do that." Oleson's consent was reluctant, but it was fairly prompt. "I'll get rid of the sheep," he said, as if he was minded to clinch the promise. "I'll do it at once."

"That's nice." Andy spoke with grim irony. "And you'll get rid of the ranch, too. You'll sell it to the Flying U--cheap."

"But my partner--Whittaker might object--"

"Look here, old-timer. You'll fix that part up; you'll find a way of fixing it. Look here--at what you're up against." He waited, with pointing finger, for one terrible minute. "Will you sell to the Flying U?"

"Y-yes!" The word was really a gulp. He tried to avoid looking where Andy pointed; failed, and shuddered at what he saw.

"I thought you would. We'll get that in writing. And we're going to wait just exactly twenty-four hours before we make a move. It'll take some fine work, but we'll do it. Our boss, here, will fix up the business end with you. He'll go with yuh right now, and stay with yuh till you make good. And the first crooked move you make--" Andy, in unconscious imitation of the Native Son, shrugged a shoulder expressively and urged Weary by a glance to take the leadership.

"Irish, you come with me. The rest of you fellows know about what to do. Andy, I guess you'll have to ride point till I get back." Weary hesitated, looked from Happy Jack to Oleson and the herders, and back to the sober faces of his fellows. "Do what you can for him, boys--and I wish one of you would ride over, after Pink gets back, and--let me know how things stack up, will you?"

Incredible as was the situation on the face of it, nevertheless it was extremely matter-of-fact in the handling; which is the way sometimes with incredible situations; as if, since we know instinctively that we cannot rise unprepared to the bigness of its possibilities, we keep our feet planted steadfastly on the ground and refuse to rise at all. And afterward, perhaps, we look back and wonder how it all came about.

At the last moment Weary turned back and exchanged guns with Andy Green, because his own was empty and he realized the possible need of one--or at least the need of having the sheep-men perfectly aware that he had one ready for use. The Native Son, without a word of comment, handed his own silver-trimmed weapon over to Irish, and rolled a cigarette deftly with one hand while he watched them ride away.

"Does this strike anybody else as being pretty raw?" he inquired calmly, dismounting among them. "I'd do a good deal for the outfit, myself; but letting that man get off--Say, you fellows up this way don't think killing a man amounts to much, do you?" He looked from one to the other with a queer, contemptuous hostility in his eyes.

Andy Green took a forward step and laid a hand familiarly on his rigid shoulder. "Quit it, Mig. We would do a lot for the outfit; that's the G.o.d's truth. And I played the game right up to the hilt, I admit. But n.o.body's killed. I told Happy to play dead. By gracious, I caught him just in the nick uh time; he'd been setting up, in another minute." To prove it, he bent and twitched the handkerchief from the face of Happy Jack, and Happy opened his eyes and made shift to growl.

"Yuh purty near-smothered me t'death, darn yuh."

"Dios!" breathed the Native Son, for once since they knew him jolted out of his eternal calm. "G.o.d, but I'm glad!"

"I guess the rest of us ain't," insinuated Andy softly, and lifted his hat to wipe the sweat off his forehead. "I will say that--" After all, he did not. Instead, he knelt beside Happy Jack and painstakingly adjusted the crumpled hat a hair's breadth differently.

"How do yuh feel, old-timer?" he asked with a very thin disguise of cheerfulness upon the anxiety of his tone.

"Well, I could feel a lot--better, without hurtin' nothin," Happy Jack responded somberly. "I hope you fellers--feel better, now. Yuh got 'em--tryin' to murder--the hull outfit; jes' like I--told yuh they would--" Gunshot wounds, contrary to the tales of certain sentimentalists, do not appreciably sweeten, or even change, a man's disposition. Happy Jack with a bullet hole through one side of him was still Happy Jack.

"Aw, quit your beefin'," Big Medicine advised gruffly. "A feller with a hole in his lung yuh could throw a calf through sideways ain't got no business statin' his views on nothin', by cripes!"

"Aw gwan. I thought you said--it didn't amount t' nothin'," Happy reminded him, anxiety stealing into his face.

"Well, it don't. May lay yuh up a day or two; wouldn't be su'prised if yuh had to stay on the bed-ground two or three meals. But look at Slim, here. Shot through the leg--shattered a bone, by cripes!--las' night, only; and here he's makin' a hand and ridin' and cussin' same as any of us t'day. We ain't goin' to let yuh grouch around, that's all. We claim we got a vacation comm' to us; you're shot up, now, and that's fun enough for one man, without throwin' it into the whole bunch. Why, a little nick like that ain't nothin'; nothin' a-tall. Why, I've been shot right through here, by cripes"--Big Medicine laid an impressive finger-tip on the top b.u.t.ton of his trousers--"and it come out back here"--he whirled and showed his thumb against the small of his back--"and I never laid off but that day and part uh the next. I was sore," he admitted, goggling Happy Jack earnestly, "but I kep' a-goin'.

I was right in fall roundup, an' I had to. A man can't lay down an' cry, by cripes, jes' because he gets pinked a little--"

"Aw, that's jest because--it ain't you. I betche you'd lay 'em down--jest like other folks, if yuh got shot--through the lungs. That ain't no--joke, lemme tell yuh!" Happy Jack was beginning to show considerable spirit for a wounded man. So much spirit that Andy Green, who had seen men stricken down with various ills, read fever signs in the countenance and in the voice of Happy, and led Big Medicine somewhat peremptorily out of ear-shot.

"Ain't you got any sense?" he inquired with fine candor. "What do you want to throw it into him like that, for? You may not think so, but he's pretty bad off--if you ask me."

Big Medicine's pale eyes turned commiseratingly toward Happy Jack. "I know he is; I ain't no fool. I was jest tryin' to cheer 'im up a little.

He was beginnin' to look like he was gittin' scared about it; I reckon maybe I made a break, sayin' what I did about it, so I jest wanted to take the cuss off. Honest to gran'ma--"

"If you know anything at all about such things, you must know what fever means in such a case. And, recollect, it's going to be quite a while before a doctor can get here."

"Oh, I'll be careful. Maybe I did throw it purty strong; I won't, no more." Big Medicine s meekness was not the least amazing incident of the day. He was a big-hearted soul under his bellow and bluff, and his sympathy for Happy Jack struck deep. He went back walking on his toes, and he stood so that his st.u.r.dy body shaded Happy Jack's face from the sun, and he did not open his mouth for another word until Irish and Jack Bates came rattling up with the spring wagon hurriedly transformed with mattress, pillows and blankets into an ambulance.

They had been thoughtful to a degree. They brought with them a jug of water and a tin cup, and they gave Happy Jack a long, cooling drink of it and bathed his face before they lifted him into the wagon. And of all the hands that ministered to his needs, the hands of Big Medicine were the eagerest and gentlest, and his voice was the most vibrant with sympathy; which was saying a good deal.

CHAPTER XVI. The End of the Dots

Slim may not have been more curious than his fellows, but he was perhaps more single-hearted in his loyalty to the outfit. To him the shooting of Happy Jack, once he felt a.s.sured that the wound was not necessarily fatal, became of secondary importance. It was all in behalf of the Flying U; and if the bullet which laid Happy Jack upon the ground was also the means of driving the hated Dots from that neighborhood, he felt, in his slow, phlegmatic way, that it wasn't such a catastrophe as some of the others seemed to think. Of course, he wouldn't want Happy to die; but he didn't believe, after all, that Happy was going to do anything like that. Old Patsy knew a lot about sickness and wounds. (Who can cook for a cattle outfit, for twenty years and more, and not know a good deal of hurts?) Old Patsy had looked Happy over carefully, and had given a grin and a snort.

"Py cosh, dot vos lucky for you, alreatty," he had p.r.o.nounced. "So you don't git plood-poisonings, mit fever, you be all right pretty soon.

You go to shleep, yet. If fix you oop till der dochtor he cooms. I seen fellers shot plumb through der middle off dem, und git yell. You ain't shot so bad. You go to shleep."

So, his immediate fears relieved, Slim's slow mind had swung back to the Dots, and to Oleson, whom Weary was even now a.s.sisting to keep his promise (Slim grinned widely to himself when he thought of the abject fear which Oleson had displayed because of the murder he thought he had done, while Happy Jack obediently "played dead"). And of Dunk, whom Slim had hated most abominably of old; Dunk, a criminal found out; Dunk, a prisoner right there on the very ranch he had thought to despoil; Dunk, at that very moment locked in the blacksmith shop. Perhaps it was not curiosity alone which sent him down there; perhaps it was partly a desire to look upon Dunk humbled--he who had trodden so arrogantly upon the necks of those below him; so arrogantly that even Slim, the slow-witted one, had many a time trembled with anger at his tone.

Slim walked slowly, as was his wont; with deadly directness, as was his nature. The blacksmith shop was silent, closed--as grimly noncommittal as a vault. You might guess whatever you pleased about its inmate; it was like trying to imagine the emotions pictured upon the face behind a smooth, black mask. Slim stopped before the closed door and listened.

The rusty, iron hasp attracted his slow gaze, at first puzzling him a little, making him vaguely aware that something about it did not quite harmonize with his mental att.i.tude toward it. It took him a full minute to realize that he had expected to find the door locked, and that the hasp hung downward uselessly, just as it hung every day in the year.