style="font-size:15px;"> "Sho'" proceeded Quagmire. "I'm tellin' yo' I rode him that night. Black? Say, it was blacker'n the inside o' a crow's windpipe. Never saw a twister come up faster. We was on the east bank of the Nueces."
"West bank," corrected Billy.
"That's right—west bank. On the west bank when it come. Right by that barn, yo' remember? No time to shove the herd aside. Funnel bearin' down on us hell bent. Every man for himself. Me, I lights out on that buckskin. Hadn't gone fifty feet when it struck. Heard an awful crash—must've been the barn—and then I sorter feels like yo'd feel after too much mescal. Yo' understan'—kinda feather-headed. I digs in my spurs, but I wasn't on no horse atall. I was fifty feet offen the ground, goin' over the river. The buckskin had vamoosed. Thought I'd lost him. Figgered I was dead when that twister let me go an' I dropped. Sho', but it's a queer feelin' to get up with the birds."
There was a rumble in the outer darkness, and the crew, to a man, straightened. A puncher rode in, dripping wet. "Still peaceable," he announced briefly, and disappeared. Tom relaxed, grinning when he saw how Lispenard's attention fastened to Quagmire's tale.
"Must've been a mile farther along," continued Quagmire, "with me gettin' higher all the times when I hears a sound like an express train comin' by. It was that dam' barn, with the top ripped off. They was ten ton o' hay in that shebang, yet it sailed by me like a shot. Then I hears a mos' piteous nicker, an' it's the buckskin, right behin' the barn. I remember I sorter prayed the saddle wouldn't fall offen him. Silver inlay saddle, an' it cost a heap.
"Well, we was a good six miles east o' the river by then, an' the twister begins to slide away from me. Me, I falls faster'n a shot duck. Had a watch on me, an' I recalls I takes it out an' throws it clear, not wantin' to light on glass. I knowed I was as good as extinct right then, an' I figgered I'd better pray. But how's a man to pray what ain't never learned the Commandments? Anyhow, I was worryin' about that silver inlay saddle. Down I went, head first. Saw the ground smack below. But that barn had lit befo' me, an' me, I struck the top o' them ten tons o' hay, bounced a couple times, an' slid right down into a manger. An' you may chalk me up as a bald-faced liar if I didn't find..."
He stopped, shaking his head from side to side. Lispenard leaned across the fire. "Well?"
Quagmire spread his hands, palms upward. "The buckskin had ketched up with the barn while both was in the air. The cuss had walked inside to get a free ride. When I slides down to the manger there he was, munchin' oats."
Billy collapsed first, moaning. The crouching punchers swayed back and forth, arms flailing, like priests performing strange rites. Wild laughter ricochetted up and against the whirling air. Lispenard jumped to his feet. "I told you it'd be another cursed fish story!"
He had to shout to make himself heard above the shrilling tempest. Quagmire still sat cushioned on his heels, water pouring down his slicker and pooling at his feet; still a sober, bemused figure. Alone of the Circle G crew, San Saba had not joined the hilarity, and now he stepped into the waning arc of light, unfriendly, brittle-voiced.
"It's an old, stale yarn to tell a gent."
Laughter died. Quagmire looked up. "Old? What's new in this ancient universe? But seein' as yo' speak of old things, I reckon I could relate a few."
"Personal allusions, suh?"
Quagmire got to his feet, but the foreman's height made him tilt his wizened face; it was a face upon which solemnity loved to dwell, yet on occasion it could be as hard as granite, as bleak as death. So it was now. "Once upon a time, San Saba..."
Lispenard stepped ahead. "Thanks, San Saba, but this is my quarrel."
Quagmire snapped at him. "It only takes two oars to row a boat! Yo' ain't got no quarrel!"
The Blond Giant fell silent, full lips twitching. Quagmire's thin chest laboured to shove his words against the wind. "Once they was a bad night—like this one. Looked as if they might be trouble—like it does now. Boss comes up to the boys and says, 'Boys, we are apt to have a stampede. Somebody's like to get killed afo' mo'nin'. Now yo'-all better write yo' true names on a piece o' paper an' tuck in yo' shirts.' That's what he said. Mebbe we'll have trouble. But they's only one man here which needs to write his true name on a paper. An' that's yo'—San Saba!"
"Quagmire—yo' lie!"
"I pay no attention to a dawg when it barks at me," replied Quagmire somberly. "Yo' past history may be unf'miliar to others, But I know it!"
"Yo' lie!" droned San Saba. "Eat those words, hear me?"
Tom Gillette stepped between the men. "Drop it! There'll be no fights in this outfit. We're on the drive."
Quagmire turned away. But San Saba craned his nutshell head forward. "This ain't yo' affair. What yo' hornin' in for?"
"I'll make it my quarrel, San Saba." The wind swept Tom Gillette's words high up, and he had to throw all his power into them. "As for quarrels—you ought to know whether I've got one with you. Wait until the drive is finished if it's in your mind to settle."
The Major rode out of the dark pit, followed by the cavvy herder. "Saddle up! Everybody ride! Lightning striking half a mile off!"
The last flame guttered and was extinguished. Tom reached Lispenard shouting. "Stick with me! If there's trouble, keep away from the herd!"
He felt Lispenard's hand knock his arm away. "Don't worry about that. I'll look out for myself."
Confusion in the horse herd. Tom threw the dripping saddle on his pony, cinched it tight against the knowledge he might have to depend utterly on the solidity of those double bands, and swung out of the melee. A hundred yards off he struck the flank of the herd. The brutes were up, moving uneasily, heads tossing. The force of the wind was shifting them; they were turning spooky—in that frame of mind where any unaccountable sound or sight might set them running. Tom walked his pony along the rim of the straggling circle, rain driving against his slicker and pounding on his skin. He was in no humour to sing, but sing he must; anything to give those uneasy, forboding kine the reassurance of his presence.
"Oh, Buffalo girls, are you comin' out to-night
Comin' out to-night, comin' out to-night,
Oh, Buffalo girls, are you comin' out to-night..."
The drums and trumpets of the storm rolled out a prolonged fanfaronade. Thunder rocked the heavens, and an instant later a sinuous, wavering bolt of lightning cracked the pit-black sky and hung suspended one long second. In the pale blue twilight thus cast over the earth Tom saw the herd massed together, tails and horns and bony backs moving like the wind-whipped surface of the sea. Stray members of the crew were silhouetted ahead, bent against the lashing rain. Then it was dark, abysmally dark, with a phosphorescent glow running across the thousands of horn tips. Thunder again, coming closer; wind and rain struck down against the earth with tenfold force. Tom's pony stood still, bracing its feet on the slippery soil.
"Oh, Buffalo girls, are you comin' out to-night,
To dance by the light of the moon..."
College—law and order—elm trees shading green lawns. What was all that but a dream, a faint echo of life? Here on this tempest-torn prairie animate creatures struggled to survive. And some would not.
Lispenard had not left the chuck wagon, though he, like the others, had saddled his pony. The time
