it for the rest of your life, for all me.”
So a truce was tacitly declared for the time being.
“By golly, looks like he done it, all right,” Slim admitted reluctantly an hour later, pointing a gloved finger toward drying footprints in the trail.
“Shore, I done it.” Big Medicine, riding his chastened sorrel at the head of the little cavalcade, twisted in the saddle to glare back at the group. “It don’t take my tracks in the mud to show I done it, either. My word for it had oughta be sufficient, by cripes!” He lifted an arm and gestured accusingly toward the far-away broken line of low ridges that marked Dry Gulch. “Six mile acrost this bench and two mile down the gulch, and I hoofed it every step uh the way with that pore feller on m’ back. And you darned chumps settin’ there in the bunk-house lettin’ me do it!”
“Yeah, we heard that before,” Pink reminded him.
“Hunh?”
“It was mentioned, amigo, seventeen times last night, and four times since we left the corral,” the Native Son reminded him gently.
“Well, it’s the truth, by cripes,” Big Medicine bellowed over his shoulder. “When a man’s hawse shows up with a empty saddle, it’s time somebuddy rode out to see what took place. I coulda laid out here and died, by cripes!” His pale stare went from face to face. “That gits me.”
“Aw, gwan!” snorted Happy Jack. “There wouldn’t nothin’ git you. I betcha a double-bitted axe wouldn’t only show a few nicks if a feller tried to brain yuh with it. I betcha sparks ’d fly off your head like hackin’ at a rock. You wouldn’t lay out an’ die nowhere!”
“Wonder who that fellow is,” Weary tactfully observed. “Not a thing in his pockets to show where he come from or where he was headed for. Cadwalloper and I went through his clothes and we didn’t find the scratch of a pen.”
“I betcha he’s on the dodge,” Happy Jack hazarded, with his usual pessimism. “He’s got a mean look, to me.”
“So’d you have a mean look, if you was struck by lightning,” Big Medicine defended loudly. “The pore feller ain’t goin’ to be pesticated about no pedigree. He’s all right—barrin’ he don’t know how to set a hawse. Pullin’ leather with all two hands, and his hawse only in a high lope—but hell, that ain’t no crime.” He sent another sweeping stare over his shoulder. “I’ve saw as pore ridin’ more’n once, right in Flying U Coulee.”
“Who, for instance?” Cal Emmett demanded quickly.
Big Medicine hedged. “Well, I ain’t namin’ no names—but I could shore spit in the feller’s eye right now that I seen chokin’ his saddle horn one mornin’—”
They disputed that assertion with bitter argument, while over their heads gray curlews sailed with slim legs dangling, curved rapier beaks thrust out as they called “Cor-reck? Cor-reck?” in aimless inquiry. On storm-draggled bushes, meadowlarks teetered and sang sweet snatches of rippling melody, endlessly repeated as if they had forgotten the rest of the song. These things, while seemingly unregarded, nevertheless soothed their mood appreciably.
“Oh, I forgot to say the Meekers aim to drive over t’day if the weather’s good,” Big Medicine announced suddenly, forgetting his grievance as they rode into Dry Gulch. “The new schoolma’am never has saw any real bronk ridin’, so when Joe made a remark about ridin’ over to watch me gentle that gray outlaw, schoolma’am spoke up an’ said she wanted to come. So they kinda framed up a Sunday picnic over t’ our place.”
“Hully gee, I guess lightnin’ musta struck you instead of that pilgrim,” Cal Emmett grinned. “Why didn’t yuh say they was comin’? I’d ’a’ rode over to Bert Rogers’ place—”
“Time enough yet, if you hurry,” Weary pointed out. “Happy, you might drift on over to Adamses and get Len, if she’s home. And you might swing around by Pilgreen’s—”
“Aw, the Pilgreens’ is comin’ anyway, if the old lady gits over her toothache,” Happy Jack cut in unwarily.
“Oh. So that’s where you was all yesterday forenoon! Lucky for you, ole timer, that Chip ain’t back yet.”
“Chip better git a wiggle on, by golly!” Slim cast an appraising glance out over the rolling hills, now brightly tinted with the green of new grass. “That there hot spell’s shore puttin’ grass on them hills.”
“Andy oughta be rollin’ in to-day or to-morrow,” Pink observed rather wishfully. “There’s a few snuffy ones in that last bunch we gathered that I’d sure like to see Andy go up against.”
“Why? Want all them nice new fillings jarred loose outa his teeth?”
“By golly, the way he talked ’fore he left, Andy’ll come home packin’ enough gold in his mouth to start a bank!” Slim chortled. “Swaller all that and we’d have to beef ’im to git it back.”
“By the looks of that last bunch, Andy’s gold fillings ain’t the only things liable to get jarred loose,” Weary predicted, with a laugh. “Come on, boys—let’s get this inquest over and done with. How much farther is it, Big Medicine?”
“Right around that next turn.” Big Medicine reined importantly in the lead and went galloping down the gulch to where the dead horse lay. The Happy Family, dismounting at the spot, gathered in a silent, staring group.
“What I can’t sabe is how that guy at the ranch escaped with a whole bone in his body,” Weary observed soberly at last.
“Well, he wasn’t touchin’ nothin’ but the horn and stirrups when she struck,” Big Medicine explained. “Prob’ly the lightnin’ slid in under ’im. Yuh might say that’s oncet a feller’s life was saved by his pore ridin’. If he’d been settin’ in the saddle like a human, he’d be playin’ a harp right now, chances is, and wonderin’ how he got there.”
“Moral, ride high and loose in a thunder-storm,” Pink declared in his clear treble.
“Say, I know that horse,” Cal suddenly exclaimed. “I sure remember that bob-wire scar on the shoulder. That horse come from the livery stable in Dry Lake. Grab a leg, boys, and turn him over. We oughta pull the saddle, anyway.”
They heaved the carcass to the other side, bringing the branded hip uppermost.
“Yeah, I could swore that was the horse,” Cal confirmed his first statement. “That’s the cayuse I rode to Box Elder after that locoed roan son-of-a-gun last spring, the time he busted his bridle and got away. Hard-gaited as the devil. I ain’t surprised that pilgrim was anchored to the saddle horn. I know my back bone like to punched a hole in my hat before I’d rode this old pelter a mile.”
“Well, the pilgrim’s got no kick coming, at that. He’s alive and the horse ain’t. Better take his outfit back to the ranch, hadn’t we?” Pink stopped and untied the small, leather bag that had evidently seen more hard usage than the storm would account for. The Happy Family gravely inspected it, discovered that it was locked and handed it over to Big Medicine as the natural guardian of the fellow’s belongings.
They removed the saddle and bridle from the dead horse, discussed the advisability of dragging
