Bar-20 - Clarence E. Mulford (best e books to read .txt) 📗

an irrigate, old tank!”

 

“Chase th’ flea ranch an’ trail along!”

 

These were a few of the salutations discernible among the medley of playful yells,

the safety valves of supercharged good-nature.

 

“Skr-e-e!” yelled Hopalong Cassidy, letting off a fusillade of shots.

 

In the vicinity of Fleas, who rapidly retreated around the corner, where he wagged

his tail in eager expectation. He was not disappointed, for a cow pony tore around in

pursuit and Hopalong leaned over and scratched the yellow back, thumping it heartily,

and, tossing a chunk of beef into the open jaws of the delighted dog, departed as he had

come. The advent of the outfit meant a square meal, and the dog knew it.

 

In Cowan’s, lined up against the bar, the others were earnestly and assiduously

endeavoring, with a promise of success, to get By-and-by drunk, which endeavors

coincided perfectly with By-and-by’s idea of the fitness of things. The fellowship and the

liquor combined to thaw out his reserve and to loosen his tongue. After gazing with an

air of injured surprise at the genial loosening of his knees he gravely handed his rifle with

an exaggerated sweep of his arm, to the cowboy nearest him, and wrapped his arms

around the recipient to insure his balance. The rifle was passed from hand to hand until it

came to Buck Peters, who gravely presented it to its owner as a new gun.

 

By-and-by threw out his stomach in an endeavor to keep his head in line with his

heels, and grasping the weapon with both hands turned to Cowan, to whom he gave it.

 

“Yu hab this un. Me got two. Me keep new un, mebby so.” Then he loosened his

belt and drank long and deep.

 

A shadow darkened the doorway and Hopalong limped in. Spying By-and-by

pushing the bottle into his mouth, while Red Connors propped him, he grinned and took

out five silver dollars, which he jingled under By-and-by’s eyes, causing that worthy to lay

aside the liquor and erratically grab for the tantalizing fortune.

 

“Not yet, sabe?” said Hopalong, changing the position of the money.

 

“If yu wants to corral this here herd of simoleons yu has to ride a cayuse what Red

bet me yu can’t ride. Yu has got to grow on that there saddle and stayed growed for five

whole minutes by Buck’s ticker. I ain’t a-goin’ to tell yu he’s any saw-horse, for yu’d know

better, as yu reckons Red wouldn’t bet on no losin’ proposition if he knowed better, which

same he don’t. Yu straddles that four-laigged cloudburst an’ yu gets these, sabe? I ain’t

seen th’ cayuse yet that yu couldn’t freeze to, an’ I’m backin’ my opinions with my moral

support an’ one month’s pay.

 

By-and-by’s eyes began to glitter as the meaning of the words sifted through his

befuddled mind. Ride a horse-five dollars-ride a five-dollars horse-horses ride dollars-then he straightened up and began to speak in an incoherent jumble of Sioux and bad

English. He, the mighty rider of the Sioux; he, the bravest warrior and the greatest

hunter; could he ride a horse for five dollars? Well, he rather thought he could. Grasping

Red by the shoulder, he tacked for the door and narrowly missed hitting the bottom step

first, landing, as it happened, in the soft dust with Red’s leg around his neck. Somewhat

sobered by the jar, he stood up and apologized to the crowd for Red getting in the way,

declaring that Red was a “Heap good un,” and that he didn’t mean to do it.

 

The outfit of the Bar-20 was, perhaps, the most famous of all from Canada to the

Rio Grande. The foreman, Buck Peters, controlled a crowd of men (who had all the

instincts of boys) that had shown no quarter to many rustlers, and who, while always

carefree and easy-going (even fighting with great good humor and carelessness), had

established the reputation of being the most reckless gang of daredevil gun-fighters that

ever pounded leather. Crooked gaming houses, from El Paso to Cheyenne and from

Phoenix to Leavenworth, unanimously and enthusiastically damned them from their boots

to their sombreros, and the sheriffs and marshals of many localities had received from

their hands most timely assistance-and some trouble. Wiry, indomitable, boyish and

generous, they were splendid examples of virile manhood; and, surrounded as they were

with great dangers and a unique civilization, they should not, in justice, be judged by

opinions born of the commonplace.

 

They were real cowboys, which means, public opinion to the contrary

notwithstanding, that they were not lawless, nor drunken, shooting bullies who held life

cheaply, as their kin has been unjustly pictured; but while these men were naturally

peaceable they had to continually rub elbows with men who were not. Gamblers,

criminals, bullies and the riffraff that fled from the protected East had drifted among them

in great numbers, and it was this class that caused the trouble.

 

The hardworking “cowpunchers” lived according to the law of the land, and they

obeyed that greatest of all laws, that of self-preservation. Their fun was boisterous, but

they paid for all the damage they inflicted; their work was one continual hardship, and the

reaction of one extreme swings far toward the limit of its antithesis.

 

Go back to the Apple if you would trace the beginning of self-preservation and the

need.

 

Buck Peters was a man of mild appearance, somewhat slow of speech and

correspondingly quick of action, who never became flurried. His was the master hand

that controlled, and his Colts enjoyed the reputation of never missing when a hit could

have been expected with reason. Many floods, stampedes and blizzards had assailed his

nerves, but he yet could pour a glass of liquor, held at arm’s length, through a knothole in

the floor without wetting the wood.

Next in age came Lanky Smith, a small, undersized man of retiring disposition.

 

Then came Skinny Thompson, six feet four on his bared soles, and true to his name;

Hopalong described him as “th’ shadow of a chalk mark.” Pete Wilson, the slow-witted

and very taciturn, and Billy Williams, the wavering pessimist, were of ordinary height

and appearance. Red Connors, with hair that shamed the name, was the possessor of a

temper which was as dry as tinder; his greatest weakness was his regard for the rifle as a

means of preserving peace.

 

Johnny Nelson was the prot��g��, and he could do no wrong.

 

The last, Hopalong Cassidy, was a combination of irresponsibility, humor, good

nature, love of fighting, and nonchalance when face to face with danger. His most

prominent attribute was that of always getting into trouble without any intention of so

doing; in fact, he was much aggrieved and surprised when it came. It seemed as though

when any “bad man” desired to add to his reputation he invariably selected Hopalong as

the means (a fact due, perhaps, to the perversity of things in general). Bad men became

scarce soon after Hopalong became a fixture in any locality. He had been crippled some

years before in a successful attempt to prevent the assassination of a friend, Sheriff

Harris, of Albuquerque, and he still possessed a limp.

 

When Red had relieved his feelings and had dug the alkali out of his ears and

eyes, he led the Sioux to the rear of the saloon, where a “pinto” was busily engaged in

endeavoring to pitch a saddle from his back, employing the intervals in trying to see how

much of the picket rope he could wrap around his legs.

 

When By-and-by saw what he was expected to ride he felt somewhat relieved, for

the pony did not appear to have more than the ordinary amount of cussedness. He waved

his hand, and Johnny and Red bandaged the animal’s eyes, which quieted him at once, and

then they untangled the rope from around his legs and saw that the cinches were secure.

Motioning to By-and-by that all was ready, they jerked the bandage off as the

Indian settled himself in the saddle.

 

Had By-and-by been really sober he would have taken the conceit out of that pony

in chunks, and as it was he experienced no great difficulty in holding his seat; but in his

addled state of mind he grasped the end of the cinch strap in such a way that when the

pony jumped forward in its last desperate effort the buckle slipped and the cinch became

unfastened; and By-and-by, still seated in the saddle, flew head foremost into the horse

trough, where he spilled much water.

 

As this happened Cowan turned the corner, and when he saw the wasted water

(which he had to carry, bucketful at a time, from the wells a good quarter of a mile away)

his anger blazed forth, and yelling, he ran for the drenched Sioux, who was just crawling

out of his bath.

 

When the unfortunate saw the irate man bearing down on him he sputtered in rage

and fear, and, turning, he ran down the street, with Cowan thundering flatfootedly behind

on a fat man’s gallop, to the hysterical cheers of the delighted outfit, who saw in it nothing

but a good joke.

 

When Cowan returned from his hopeless task, blowing and wheezing, he heard

sundry remarks, sotto voce, which were not calculated to increase his opinion of his

physical condition.

“Seems to me,” remarked the irrepressible Hopalong, “that one of those cayuses

has got th’ heaves.”

 

“It shore sounds like it,” acquiesced Johnny, red in the face from holding in his

laughter, “an’ say, somebody interferes.”

 

“All knock-kneed animals do, yu heathen,” supplied Red.

 

`Hey, yu, let up on that and have a drink on th’ house,” invited Cowan. “If I gits

that durn war whoop I’ll make yu think there’s been a cyclone. I’ll see how long that bum

hangs around this here burg, I will.”

 

Red’s eyes narrowed and his temper got the upper hand. “He ain’t no bum when

yu gives him rotgut at a quarter of a dollar a glass, is he? Any time that `bum’ gits razzled

out for nothin’ more’n this, why, I goes too; an’ I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ about goin’ peaceable-like, neither.”

 

“I knowed somethin’ like this `ud happen,” dolefully sang out Billy Williams,

strong on the side of his pessimism.

 

“For th’ Lord’s sake, have you broke out?” asked Red, disgustedly.

 

“I’m goin’ to hit the trail-but just keep this afore yore mind: if By-and-by gits in

any accidents or ain’t in sight when I comes to town again, this here climate’ll be a heep

sight hotter’n it is now. No hard feelings, sabe? It’s just a casual bit of advice. Come on,

fellows, let’s amble—I’m hungry.”

 

As they raced across the plain toward the ranch a pair of beady eyes, snapping

with a drunken rage, watched them from an arroyo; and when Cowan entered the saloon

the next morning he could not find By-and-by’s rifle, which he had placed behind the bar.

 

He also missed a handful of cartridges from the box near the cash drawer; and had he

looked closely at his bottled whisky he would have noticed a loss there. A horse was

missing from a Mexican’s corral and there were rumors that several Indians had been seen

far out on the plain.