The One-Way Trail.

by Ridgwell Cullum.

CHAPTER I

A GENTLEMAN RANKER

Dan McLagan shifted his cigar, and his face lit with a grin of satisfaction.

"Seventy-five per cent. of calves," he murmured, glancing out at the sunlit yards. "Say, it's been an elegant round-up." Then his enthusiasm rose and found expression. "It's the finest, luckiest ranch in Montana--in the country. Guess I'd be within my rights if I said 'in the world.' I can't say more."

"No."

The quiet monosyllable brought the rancher down to earth. He looked round at his companion with an inquiring glance.

"Eh?"

But Jim Thorpe had no further comment to offer.

The two were sitting in the foreman's cabin, a small but roughly comfortable split-log hut, where elegance and tidiness had place only in the more delicate moments of its occupant's retrospective imagination. Its furnishing belonged to the fashion of the prevailing industry, and had in its manufacture the utilitarian methods of the Western plains, rather than the more skilled workmanship of the furniture used in civilization. Thus, the bed was a stretcher supported on two packing-cases, the table had four solid legs that had once formed the sides of a third packing-case, while the cupboard, full of cattle medicines, was the reconstructed portions of a fourth packing-case.

The collected art on the walls consisted of two rareties. One was a torn print of a woman's figure, cla.s.sically indecent with regard to apparel; and the other was a fly-disfigured portrait of a sweet-faced old lady, whose refinement and dignity of expression suggested surroundings of a far more delicate nature than those in which she now found herself. Besides these, a brace of ivory-b.u.t.ted revolvers served to ornament the wall at the head of the bed. And a stack of five or six repeating rifles littered an adjacent corner.

It was a man's abode, and the very simplicity of it, the lack of cheap ornamentation, the carelessness of self in it, suggested a great deal of the occupant's character. Jim Thorpe cared as little for creature comforts as only a healthy-minded, healthy-bodied man, who has tasted of the best and pa.s.sed the dish--or has had it s.n.a.t.c.hed from him--will sometimes care. His thoughts were of the moment. He dared not look behind him; and ahead?--well, as yet, he had no desire to think too far ahead.

The ranch owner was sitting on the side of the stretcher, and Jim Thorpe, his foreman, stood leaning against the table. McLagan's Irish face, his squat figure and powerful head were a combination suggesting tremendous energy and determination, rather than any great mental power, and in this he strongly contrasted with the refined, thoughtful face of his foreman.

But then, in almost every characteristic the Irishman differed from his employee. While Jim's word was never questioned even by the veriest sceptic of the plains, McLagan was notoriously the greatest, most optimistic liar in the state of Montana. A reputation that required some niceness of proficiency to retain.

McLagan's ranch was known as the "AZ's." It was a brand selected to illuminate his opinion of his own undertakings. He said that his ranch must be the beginning and end of all things in the cattle world, and he was proud of the ingenuity in his selection of a brand. The less cultured folk, who, perhaps, had more humor than respect for the Irishman, found his brand tripped much more easily off the tongue by replacing the Z with an S, and invariably using the plural.

"Say, Jim," the rancher went on, buoyed with his own enthusiasm, "it's been a great round-up. Seventy-five per cent. Bully! I'll open out my scheme. Listen. Ther's Donagh's land b.u.t.tin' on us. Thirty sections.

They got stations for 10,000 head of stock. We'll buy 'em right out of business. See? I'm goin' to turn those stations into double. That slice of land will carry me backing right up into the foot-hills, which means shelter for my stock in winter. See? Then I'll rent off a dozen or more homesteads for a supply of grain and hay. You know I hate to blow hot air around, but I say right here I'm going to help myself to a mighty big cinch on Montana, and then--why, I'll lay right on the heels of Congress."

He looked for approval into the bronzed face of his companion. But Thorpe hesitated, while a shadowy smile lurked in his clear, dark eyes.

"That's so," he observed, with a suspicious quietness.

"Sure," added the other, to clinch what he believed to be his companion's approval.

"And then?"

The rancher stirred uneasily. The tone of Thorpe's inquiry suggested doubt.

"And then?" McLagan repeated uncertainly.

"Why, when you've got all this, and you're the biggest producer in the country, the beef folk in Chicago 'll beat you down to their price, and the automobile folk will cut the ground clear from under your horses' feet. You won't hit Congress, because you won't have the dollars to buy your graft with. Then, when you're left with nothing to round-up but a bunch of gophers, the government will come along and have you seen to."

The Irishman's face grew scarlet, and he began to splutter, but Jim Thorpe went on mercilessly.

"Cut it out, boss. We're cattlemen, both of us. You've grown up to cattle, and I--well, I've acquired the habit, I guess. But cut it out, and put your change into automobiles. They aren't things to breed with, I guess. But I'd say they'd raise a dust there's more dollars in than there's beans in our supper hash."

The rancher's swift anger had gone. He shook his head, and his hard, blue eyes stared out through the doorway at the busy life beyond. He could see the lines of buildings packed close together, as though huddling up for companionship in that wide, lonesome world of gra.s.s.

He could see the acres and acres of corrals, outlying, a rampart to the ranch buildings. Then, beyond that, the barbed wire fencing, miles and miles of it. He could see hors.e.m.e.n moving about, engaged upon their day's work. He could hear the lowing of the cattle in the corrals. As Thorpe had said, he had grown up to cattle. Cattle and horses were his life.

He was rich now. This was all his. He was growing richer every year, and--Thorpe was prophesying the slump, the end. He couldn't believe it, or rather he wouldn't believe it. And he turned with a fierce expression of blind loyalty to his calling.

"To h---- with automobiles! It's cattle for me. Cattle or bust!"

Thorpe shook his head.

"There's no alternative, boss. I can see it all coming. Everybody can--if they look. There's nothing between grain farming and--automobiles. The land here is too rich to waste on cattle. There's plenty other land elsewhere that'll feed stock, but wouldn't raise a carrot. Psha! There won't be need for horses to plough, or even haul grain; and you've got 15,000 head. It'll be all automobiles!"

"I'd 'sc.r.a.p' the lot!" added the Irishman, briefly and feelingly. Then he glanced at his companion out of the tail of his eye. "I s'pose it's your education, boy. That's what's wrong with you. Your head's running wheels. You come into cattle too late. You've got city doings down your backbone, and I guess you need weeding bad. Say, you're a West Point man, ain't you?"

Thorpe seemed to shrink at the question. He turned aside, and his eyes rested for a moment on the portrait nailed upon his wall. It was only for a moment his dark eyes encountered the tender old eyes that looked out at him from the faded picture. Then he looked again at the owner of the "AZ's," and gave him a smiling nod.

"Sure, boss. I intended to go into the engineers."

"Ah--wheels."

"You see, we've all been soldiers, since way back when my folks came over with the first lot from England. Guess I'm the first--backslider."

"Nope. You ain't a backslider, Jim Thorpe. I sure wouldn't say that.

Not on my life. Guess you're the victim of a cow-headed government that reckons to make soldiers by arithmetic, an' wastin' ink makin'

fool answers to a sight more fool questions. Gee, when I hit Congress, I'll make some one holler 'help.'"

The foreman's smile broadened.

"'Twasn't exams, boss," he said quietly. "I'd got a cinch on them, and they were mostly past cutting any ice with me. It was--well, it don't matter now." He paused, and his eyes settled again on the portrait.

The Irishman waited, and presently Jim turned from the picture, and his quizzical smile encountered the hard blue eyes of the other.

"You said just now my head was full of wheels," he began, with a humorous light in his eyes that was yet not without sadness. "Maybe it is--maybe it has reason to be. You see, it was an automobile that finished my career at West Point. My mother came by her death in one.

An accident. Automobiles were immature then--and--well, her income died with her, and I had to quit and hustle in a new direction.

Curiously enough I went into the works of an automobile enterprise.

I--I hated the things, but they fascinated me. I made good there, and got together a fat wad of bills, which was useful seeing I had my young cousin's--you know, young Will Henderson, of Barnriff; he's a trapper now--education on my hands. Just as things were good and dollars were coming plenty the enterprise bust. I was out--plumb out.

I hunched up for another kick. I had a dandy patent that was to do big things. I got together a syndicate to run it. I'd got a big car built to demonstrate my patent, and it represented all I had in the world.

It was to be on the race-track. Say, she didn't demonstrate worth a cent. My syndicate jibbed, and I--well, here I am, a cattleman--you see cattle haven't the speed of automobiles, but they mostly do what's expected. That's my yarn, boss. You didn't know much of me. It's not a great yarn as life goes. Mostly ordinary. But there's a deal of life in it, in its way. There's a pile of hope busted, and hope busted isn't a pleasant thing. Makes you think a deal. However, Will Henderson and I--we can't kick a lot when you look around. I'm earning a good wage, and I've got a tidy job--that don't look like quitting.

And Will--he's netting eighty a month out of his pelts. After all things don't much count, do they? Fifty or sixty years hence our doings won't cut any ice. We're down, out, and nature shuts out memory. That's the best of it. We shan't know anything. We'll have forgotten everything we ever did know. We shan't be haunted by the 'might-have-beens'. We shall have no regrets. It'll just be sleep, a long, long sleep--and forgetfulness. And then--ah, well, boss, I'm yarning a heap, and the boys are out on the fences with no one to see they're not shooting 'c.r.a.ps.'"

The rancher turned to the door.

"I'm going out to the fences meself," he said, shortly. Then he went on: "There's a dozen an' more three-year-olds in the corrals needs bustin'. You best set two o' the boys on 'em. Ther's a black mare among 'em. I'll get you to handle her yourself. I'm goin' to ride her, an' don't want no fool broncho-buster tearing her mouth out."

"Right-ho, boss." Jim was smiling happily at the man's broad back as he stood facing out of the door. "But, if you've half a minute, I've got something else to get through me."