Cow-Country by B. M. Bower (best color ereader txt) 📗

world, and that the sky was a glorious jumble of red and purple and soft rose.

The first thing Buddy did was to stoop and study attentively the dead snake, to see if the tail still wiggled. It did not, though he watched it for a full minute. He looked at the sun—it had not set but glowed big and yellow as far from the earth as his father was tall. Ezra had lied to him. Dead snakes did not wiggle their tails until sundown.

Buddy looked for the dust cloud of the herd, and was surprised to find it smaller than he had ever seen it, and farther away. Indeed, he could only guess that the faint smudge on the horizon was the dust he had followed for more days than he could count. He was not afraid, but he was hungry and he thought his mother would maybe wonder where he was, and he knew that the point-riders had already stopped pushing the herd ahead, and that the cattle were feeding now so that they would bed down at dusk. The chuckwagon was camped somewhere close by, and old Step-and-a-Half, the lame cook, was stirring things in his Dutch ovens over the camp-fire. Buddy could almost smell the beans and the meat stew, he was so hungry. He turned and took one last, long look at the endless stream of ants still crawling along, picked up the dead snake by the tail, cupped the other hand over the horned toad inside his waist, and started for camp.

After a while he heard someone shouting, but beyond faint relief that he was after all near his “Outfit”, Buddy paid no attention. The boys were always shouting to one another, or yelling at their horses or at the herd or at the niggers. It did not occur to him that they might be shouting for him, until from another direction he heard Ezra's unmistakable, booming voice. Ezra sang a thunderous baritone when the niggers lifted up their voices in song around their camp-fire, and he could be heard for half a mile when he called in real earnest. He was calling now, and Buddy, stopping to listen, fancied that he heard his name. A little farther on, he was sure of it.

“OOO-EE! Whah y'all, Buddy? OOO-EEE!”

“I'm a-comin',” Buddy shrilled impatiently. “What y' all want?”

His piping voice did not carry to Ezra, who kept on shouting. The radiant purple and red and gold above him deepened, darkened. The whole wild expanse of half-barren land became suddenly a place of unearthly beauty that dulled to the shadows of dusk. Buddy trudged on, keeping to the deep-worn buffalo trails which the herd had followed and scored afresh with their hoofs. He could not miss his way-not Buddy, son of Bob Birnie, owner of the Tomahawk outfit-but his legs were growing pretty tired, and he was so hungry that he could have sat down on the ground and cried with the gnawing food-call of his empty little stomach.

He could hear other voices shouting at intervals now, but Ezra's voice was the loudest and the closest, and it seemed to Buddy that Ezra never once stopped calling. Twice Buddy called back that he was a-comin', but Ezra shouted just the same: “OOO-EE! WHAH Y' ALL, BUDDY? OOO-EE!”

Imperceptibly dusk deepened to darkness. A gust of anger swept Buddy's soul because he was tired, because he was hungry and he was yet a long way from the camp, but chiefly because Ezra persisted in calling after Buddy had several times answered. He heard someone whom he recognized as Frank Davis, but by this time he was so angry that he would not say a word, though he was tempted to ask Frank to take him up on his horse and let him ride to camp. He heard others-and once the beat of hoofs came quite close. But there was a wide streak of Scotch stubbornness in Buddy—along with several other Scotch streaks—and he continued his stumbling progress, dragging the snake by the tail, his other hand holding fast the horned toad.

His heart jumped up and almost choked him when first saw the three twinkles on the ground which knew were not stars but camp-fires.

Quite unexpectedly he trudged into the firelight where Step-and-a-Half was stirring delectable things in the iron pots and stopping every minute or so to stare anxiously into the gloom. Buddy stood blinking and sniffing, his eyes fixed upon the Dutch ovens.

“I'm HUNGRY!” he announced accusingly, gripping the toad that had begun to squirm at the heat and light. “I kilt a snake an' I'm HUNGRY!”

“Good gorry!” swore Step-and-a-Half, and whipped out his six-shooter and fired three shots into the air.

Footsteps came scurrying. Buddy's mother swept him into her arms, laughing with a little whimpering sound of tears in the laughter. Buddy wriggled protestingly in her arms.

“L'kout! Y' all SKUCSH 'im! I got a HAWN-toe; wight here.” He patted his chest gloatingly. “An' I got a snake. I kilt 'im. An' I'm HUNGRY.”

Mother of Buddy though she was, Lassie set him down hurriedly and surveyed her man-child from a little distance.

“Buddy! Drop that snake instantly'”

Buddy obeyed, but he planted a foot close to his kill and pouted his lips. “'S my snake. I kilt 'im,” He said firmly. He pulled the horned toad from his waist-front and held it tightly in his two hands. “An's my hawn-toe. I ketche'd'm. 'Way ova dere,” he added, tilting his tow head toward the darkness behind him.

Bob Birnie rode up at a gallop, pulled up his horse in the edge of the fire glow and dismounted hastily.

Bob Birnie never needed more than one glance to furnish him the details of a scene. He saw the very small boy confronting his mother with a dead snake, a horned toad and a stubborn set to his lips. He saw that the mother looked rather helpless before the combination—and his brown mustache hid a smile. He walked up and looked his first-born over.

“Buddy,” He demanded sternly, “where have you been?”

“Out dere. Kilt a snake. Ants was trailing a herd. I got a HAWN-toe. An' I'm hungry!”

“You know better than to leave the wagon, young man. Didn't you know we had to get out and hunt you, and mother was scared the wolves might eat you? Didn't you hear us calling you? Why didn't you answer?”

Buddy looked up from under his baby eyebrows at his father, who seemed very tall and very terrible. But his bare foot touched the dead snake and he took comfort. “I was comin',” he said. “I WASN'T los'. I bringed my snake and my hawn-toe. An' dey—WASN'T—any—woluffs!” The last word came muffled, buried in his mother's skirts.