The Flying U Ranch by B. M. Bower (best interesting books to read .TXT) 📗

He was hungry, and his lunch was tied to his saddle. He looked eagerly down the coulee, in the faint hope of seeing his horse grazing somewhere along its length, until the numbness of his arms and hands reminded him that forty lunches, tied upon forty saddles at his side, would be of no use to him in his present position. His hands he could not move from his thighs; he could wiggle his fingers—which he did, to relieve as much as possible that unpleasant, prickly sensation which we call a “going to sleep” of the afflicted members. When it occurred to him that he could not do anything with his horse if he found it, he gave up looking for it and started for the ranch, walking awkwardly, because of his bonds, the sun shining hotly upon his brown head, because his hat had been knocked off in the scuffle, and he could not pick it up and put it back where it belonged.

Taking a straight course across the prairie, he struck Flying U coulee at the point where the sheep had left it. On the way there he had crossed their trail where they went through the fence farther along the coulee than before, and therefore with a better chance of passing undetected; especially since the Happy Family, believing that he was forcing them steadily to the north, would not be watching for sheep. The barbed wire barrier bothered him somewhat. He was compelled to lie down and roll under the fence, in the most undignified manner, and, when he was through, there was the problem of getting upon his feet again. But he managed it somehow, and went on down the coulee, perspiring with the heat and a bitter realization of his ignominy. What the Happy Family would have to say when they saw him, even Andy Green's vivid imagination declined to picture.

He knew by the sun that it was full noon when he came in sight of the stable and corrals, and his soul sickened at the thought of facing that derisive bunch of punchers, with their fiendish grins and their barbed tongues. But he was hungry, and his arms had reached the limit of prickly sensations and were numb to his shoulders. He shook his hair back from his beaded forehead, cast a wary glance at the silent stables, set his jaw, and went on up the hill to the mess-house, wishing tardily that he had waited until they were off at work again, when he might intimidate old Patsy into keeping quiet about his predicament.

Within the mess-house was the clatter of knives and forks plied by hungry men, the sound of desultory talk and a savory odor of good things to eat. The door was closed. Andy stood before it as a guilty-conscienced child stands before its teacher; clicked his teeth together, and, since he could not open the door, lifted his right foot and gave it a kick to strain the hinges.

Within were exclamations of astonishment, silence and then a heavy tread. Patsy opened the door, gasped and stood still, his eyes popping out like a startled rabbit.

“Well, what's eating you?” Andy demanded querulously, and pushed past him into the room.

Not all of the Happy Family were there. Cal, Jack Bates, Irish and Happy Jack had gone into the Bad Lands next to the river; but there were enough left to make the soul of Andy quiver forebodingly, and to send the flush of extreme humiliation to his cheeks.

The Happy Family looked at him in stunned surprise; then they glanced at one another in swift, wordless inquiry, grinned wisely and warily, and went on with their dinner. At least they pretended to go on with their dinner, while Andy glared at them with amazed reproach in his misleadingly honest gray eyes.

“When you've got plenty of time,” he said at last in a choked tone, “maybe one of you obliging cusses will untie this damned rope.”

“Why, sure!” Pink threw a leg over the bench and got up with cheerful alacrity. “I'll do it now, if you say so; I didn't know but what that was some new fad of yours, like—”

“Fad!” Andy repeated the word like an explosion.

“Well, by golly, Andy needn't think I'm goin' to foller that there style,” Slim stated solemnly. “I need m' rope for something else than to tie n' clothes on with.”

“I sure do hate to see a man wear funny things just to make himself conspicuous,” Pink observed, while he fumbled at the knot, which was intricate. Andy jerked away from him that he might face him ragefully.

“Maybe this looks funny to you,” he cried, husky with wrath. “But I can't seem to see the joke, myself. I admit I let then herders make a monkey of me.... They slipped up behind, going down into Antelope coulee, and slid down the bluff onto me; and, before I could get up, they got me tied, all right. I licked one of 'en before that, and thought I had 'en gentled down—”

Andy stopped short, silenced by that unexplainable sense which warns us when our words are received with cold disbelief.

“Mh-hm—I thought maybe you'd run up against a hostile jackrabbit, or something,” Pink purred, and went back to his place on the bench.

“Haw-haw-haw-w-w!” came Big Medicine's tardy bellow. “That's more reasonable than the sheepherder story, by cripes!”

Andy looked at them much as he had stared up at the sky before he began to swear—speechlessly, with a trembling of the muscles around his mouth. He was quite white, considering how tanned he was, and his forehead was shiny, with beads of perspiration standing thickly upon it.

“Weary, I wish you'd untie this rope. I can't.” He spoke still in that peculiar, husky tone, and, when the last words were out, his teeth went together with a snap.

Weary glanced inquiringly across at the Native Son, who was regarding Andy steadily, as one gazes upon a tangled rope, looking for the end which will easiest lead to an untangling.

Miguel's brown eyes turned languidly to meet the look. “You'd better untie him,” he advised in his soft drawl. “He may not be in the habit of doing it—but he's telling the truth.”

“Untie me, Miguel,” begged Andy, going over to him, “and let me at this bunch.”

“I'll do it,” said Weary, and rose pacifically. “I kinda believe you myself, Andy. But you can't blame the boys none; you've fooled 'em till they're dead shy of anything they can't see through. And, besides, it sure does look like a plant. I'd back you single-handed against a dozen sheepherders like then two we've been chasing around. If I hadn't felt that way I wouldn't have sent yuh out alone with 'em.”

“Well, Andy needn't think he's goin' to stick me on that there story,” Slim declared with brutal emphasis. “I've swallered too many baits, by golly. He's figurin' on gettin' us all out on the war-path, runnin' around in circles, so's't he can give us the laugh. I'll bet, by golly, he paid then herders to tie him up like that. He can't fool me!”

“Say, Slim, I do believe your brains is commencin' to sprout!” Big Medicine thumped him painfully upon the back by way of accenting the compliment. “You got the idee, all right.”