and wide among the company’s ranches. Stir you in with decenter blood. You’ll go to White-horse ranch, just across the line of Nevada,” he said to Half-past Full. “I’m tired of the brothers Drinker. You’ll go—let’s see—”
Drake paused in his apportionment, and a sleigh came swiftly round the turn, the horse loping and lathery.
“What vas dat shooting I hear joost now?” shouted Max Vogel, before he could arrive. He did not wait for any answer. “Thank the good God!” he exclaimed, at seeing the boy Dean Drake unharmed, standing with a gun. And to their amazement he sped past them, never slacking his horse’s lope until he reached the corral. There he tossed the reins to the placid Bolles, and springing out like a surefooted elephant, counted his saddle-horses; for he was a general. Satisfied, he strode back to the crowd by the demijohn. “When dem men get restless,” he explained to Drake at once, “always look out. Somebody might steal a horse.”
The boy closed one gray, confidential eye at his employer. “Just my idea,” said he, “when I counted ’em before breakfast.”
“You liddle r-rascal,” said Max, fondly, “What you shoot at?”
Drake pointed at the demijohn. “It was bigger than those bottles at Nampa,” said he. “Guess you could have hit it yourself.”
Max’s great belly shook. He took in the situation. It had a flavor that he liked. He paused to relish it a little more in silence.
“Und you have killed noding else?” said he, looking at Uncle Pasco, who blinked copiously. “Mine old friend, you never get rich if you change your business so frequent. I tell you that thirty years now.” Max’s hand found Drake’s shoulder, but he addressed Brock. “He is all what you tell me,” said he to the foreman. “He have joodgement.”
Thus the huge, jovial Teuton took command, but found Drake had left little for him to do. The buccaroos were dispersed at Harper’s, at Fort Rinehart, at Alvord Lake, towards Stein’s peak, and at the Island Ranch by Harney Lake. And if you know east Oregon, or the land where Chief E-egante helped out Specimen Jones, his white soldier friend, when the hostile Bannocks were planning his immediate death as a spy, you will know what wide regions separated the buccaroos. Bolles was taken into Max Vogel’s esteem; also was Chinese Sam. But Max sat smoking in the office with his boy superintendent, in particular satisfaction.
“You are a liddle r-rascal,” said he. “Und I r-raise you fifty dollars.”
THE APACHE MOUNTAIN WAR, by Robert E. Howard
Some day, maybe, when I’m old and gray in the whiskers, I’ll have sense enough not to stop when I’m riding by Uncle Shadrach Polk’s cabin, and Aunt Tascosa Polk hollers at me. Take the last time, for instance. I ought to of spurred Cap’n Kidd into a high run when she stuck her head out’n the winder and yelled: “Breckinridge! Oh, Breckinridddgggge!”
But I reckon pap’s right when he says Nater gimme so much muscle she didn’t have no room left for brains. Anyway, I reined Cap’n Kidd around, ignoring his playful efforts to bite the muscle out of my left thigh, and I rode up to the stoop and taken off my coonskin-cap. I said: “Well, Aunt Tascosa, how air you all?”
“You may well ast how air we,” she said bitterly. “How should a pore weak woman be farin’ with a critter like Shadrach for a husband? It’s a wonder I got a roof over my head, or so much as a barr’l of b’ar meat put up for the winter. The place is goin’ to rack and rooin. Look at that there busted axe-handle, for a instance. Is a pore weak female like me got to endure sech abuse?”
“You don’t mean to tell me Uncle Shadrach’s been beatin’ you with that axe-handle?” I says, scandalized.
“No,” says this pore weak female. “I busted it over his head a week ago, and he’s refused to mend it. It’s licker is been Shadrach’s rooin. When he’s sober he’s a passable figger of a man, as men go. But swiggin’ blue rooin is brung him to shame an’ degradation.”
“He looks fat and sassy,” I says.
“Beauty ain’t only skin-deep,” she scowls. “Shadrach’s like Dead Sea fruit—fair and fat-bellied to look on, but ready to dissolve in dust and whiskey fumes when prodded. Do you know whar he is right now?” And she glared at me so accusingly that Cap’n Kidd recoiled and turned pale.
“Naw,” says I. “Whar?”
“He’s over to the Apache Mountain settlement a-lappin’ up licker,” she snarled. “Just a-rootin’ and a-wallerin’ in sin and corn juice, riskin’ his immortal soul and blowin’ in the money he got off’n his coon hides. I had him locked in the corn crib, aimin’ to plead with him and appeal to his better nater, but whilst I was out behind the corral cuttin’ me a hickory club to do the appealin’ with, he kicked the door loose and skun out. I know whar he’s headin’—to Joel Garfield’s stillhouse, which is a abomination in the sight of the Lord and oughta be burnt to the ground and the ashes skwenched with the blood of the wicked. But I cain’t stand here listenin’ to yore gab. I got hominy to make. What you mean wastin’ my time like this for? I got a good mind to tell yore pap on you. You light a shuck for Apache Mountain and bring Shadrach home.”
“But—” I said.
“Don’t you give me no argyments, you imperdent scoundrel!” she hollered. “I should think you’d be glad to help a pore, weak female critter ’stead of wastin’ yore time gamblin’ and fightin’, in such dens of iniquity as War Paint. I want you to fix some way so’s to disgust Shadrach with drink for the rest of his nateral life, and if you don’t you’ll hear from me, you good-for-nothin’—”
“All right!” I yelled. “All right! Anything for a little peace! I’ll git him and bring him home, and make a teetotaler outa him if I have to strangle the old son of a—”
“How dast you use sech langwidge in front of me?” she hollered. “Ain’t you got no respect for a lady? I’ll be #4%*¢@?-!’d if I know what the &%$@*¢ world’s comin’ to! Git outa here and don’t show yore homely mug around here again onless you git Shadrach off of rum for good!”
* * * *
Well, if Uncle Shadrach ever took a swig of rum in his life it was because they warn’t no good red corn whiskey within reach, but I didn’t try to argy with Aunt Tascosa. I lit out down the trail feeling like I’d been tied up to a Apache stake with the whole tribe sticking red-hot Spanish daggers into my hide. Aunt Tascosa affects a man that way. I heard Cap’n Kidd heave a sigh of relief plumb up from his belly, too, as we crossed a ridge and her distant voice was drowned out by the soothing noises of a couple of bobcats fighting with a timber wolf. I thought what ca’m and happy lives them simple critters lived, without no Aunt Tascosa.
I rode on, forgetting my own troubles in feeling sorry for pore Uncle Shadrach. They warn’t a mean bone in his carcass. He was just as good-natered and hearty a critter as you’d ever meet even in the Humbolts. But his main object in life seemed to be to stow away all the corn juice they is in the world.
As I rode along I racked my brain for a plan to break Uncle Shadrach of this here habit. I like a dram myself, but in moderation, never more’n a gallon or so at a time, unless it’s a special occasion. I don’t believe in a man making a hawg out of hisself, and anyway I was sick and tired running Uncle Shadrach down and fetching him home from his sprees.
I thought so much about it on my way to Apache Mountain that I got
