Part 4

Upon reaching the meadow gate the Lieutenant who acted as bookkeeper jumped out to open it but failed to return after they had driven through. Upon investigation they found he had caught his finger between the wire loop and the post and was held fast. They extricated him from his dilemma and drove on. It was very dark and upon reaching the house as the august Colonel descended from the wagon, he tripped over a pile of stones lying near the gate, fell down and just escaped breaking his neck. I tried to smile and yet be sympathetic—but I had a vision of Owen with “one hundred fifty horses of a dark bay color” on his hands if the good humor of the officers was not restored before morning.

They were shown to their rooms and I prayed nothing would happen to the Veterinarian, who had so far remained intact.

The Colonel and the Lieutenant had come down stairs. We were all in the library waiting for the Doctor before going in to dinner, when we heard a fearful crash. We rushed into the hall to see the poor man sitting on the steps holding both hands to his head. He was very tall and, coming down the narrow winding stairs, had struck his head on an overhanging projection which he had failed to observe. His injury was more uncomfortable than serious and had quite a cheering effect on his two companions, who began to chaff him about “taking off an inch or two” so by the time dinner was over they were all in high spirits.

The following morning at nine the inspection began. Each horse was brought out, looked over and measured to see that he came up to the stipulated number of “hands”. If he passed he was immediately ridden.

Each of the men rode the horses he had broken. First the horse was walked up and down between the blacksmith-shop and the corral, then trotted and then run, after which his lungs and breathing were tested and if satisfactory he was accepted.

Every time a man got on to ride, I was conscious of a feeling of great uncertainty. The horses looked quiet enough and were fairly gentle, but Owen and I knew that the slightest variation in the manner of mounting or “touching them up” might cause them to go through a few movements not required by the United States Government.

As it was, all those we had expected to buck behaved like lambs, while those which had been considered fairly well broken did everything from bucking to snorting and blowing foam all over the Veterinarian when he attempted to examine their teeth and test their lungs.

For three days the inspection went on, each day more interesting than the last, until all the horses had been examined and out of the number the necessary one hundred and fifty accepted and branded U. S.

As the bunch of horses headed for Denver was being driven off the ranch, Fred looked after them reflectively—

“If them sodjers can ride, it’ll be all right,” he remarked, “but if they go to puttin’ tenderfeet on them bronchs, they’ll land in Kingdom-come before they ever hit the saddle.”

VI

A VARIETY OF RUNAWAYS

Life in any primitive, sparsely settled country is fraught with adventure. It is the element which gives zest to everyday affairs and which lifts existence above the commonplace, but since everything has its price, the price of untrammelled living must often be paid in discomfort and inconvenience.

To us, and to many others, abounding health and freedom were ample compensations for a few annoying circumstances but with our guests it was a more serious consideration. After a few experiences we began to discourage the visits of those unfitted by nature and temperament for “roughing it”.

We could not control the elements nor untoward events. Fate had such an invariable custom of upsetting and rearranging all of our most carefully laid plans that when friends, especially “tenderfeet”, arrived, we had a premonition that before they departed something would happen. It never failed.

In the house our guests were exempt from anxiety and discomfort, but no one cared to stay indoors when a dazzling world of blue, green and gold lay just outside, and the unexpected was no regarder of persons. A cloud-burst was just as apt to descend upon the unsuspecting head of a delicate, carefully nurtured old lady as was an indiscriminating rattlesnake to frighten some timid soul into hysterics.

Everyone who came to the ranch wanted to ride, those knowing least about horses being the most insistent, and not wishing to take any chances, at first we gave them Billy, gentle, trustworthy Billy, who, when running loose, could be caught by a man on foot and ridden into the corral with a handkerchief around his neck instead of a bridle. We would start out, the tenderfoot joyously “off for a horseback ride,” and the next thing we knew he would be off the horse doubled up under a fence or lying flat on the prairie, while Billy peacefully nibbled grass. No one could explain it unless the uninitiated had lost a stirrup and had unwittingly given the horse a dig in the ribs which was immediately resented—so even Billy was disqualified.

The truth was, none of our horses was sufficiently well broken for the inexperienced horseman to ride or drive. They behaved very decently until something occurred, which was out of the ordinary, and then the reaction was most sudden and disastrous.

With the stock on the ranch we had acquired about four hundred horses, most of which had never been handled and were running loose on the range. Before they were of any use or value they had to be broken and Owen felt that it was one of the most important things to be done. Consequently, many of the horses were broken to drive in the hay field, the broncho hitched up with a gentle horse, and put onto the rake or mowing machine—many were the runaways.

Charley was leisurely by nature. He never hurried either in speech or movement. Owen and I were in the office one morning when he strolled around the house and up to the door.

“Mis-ter Brook,” he drawled, “Ja-ne and Maud are running away with the mow-ing machine down in the timber—they throw-ed Windy off the seat,” but before he got the last word out, his listener was down the steps, over the fence and on his way toward the creek where Maud and Jane were tearing through the timber leaving parts of the mowing machine on stumps and fallen logs, while Charley looked after him in mild surprise. The horses were brought to an abrupt stop when one tried to go on one side of a tree and the other on the opposite side.

There was a beautiful black horse, “Toledo”, that refused to allow anyone to come near him but Owen or Bill, and there was also a new man on the ranch who so constantly boasted of his ability to handle bronchos the boys had dubbed him “Windy”.

Windy concluded one day that he would harness Toledo alone. There were violent sounds in the stable, snorts, shouts, thumps, and Windy sailed through the open door and landed on a conveniently placed pile of manure, frightened to death but unhurt.

Bill was furious.

“What’d you do to him, anyhow?” he stormed after roping Toledo who had broken his halter and was running loose in the corral.

“I didn’t do nothin’ to him,” protested Windy. “I just crope up and retched over and tetched him and he begun to snort and cave ’round.”

“Course you didn’t do nothin’, you couldn’t do nothin’ if you tried. You’d better go back to town where you belong, ’stead a stayin’ out here spoilin’ good horses.” Bill’s choler was rising. “You don’t know nothin’ neither, you’re jest a bone head, your spine’s jest growed up and haired over.” And, leading the subdued Toledo, Bill disappeared into the stable.

When the team that Owen reserved for his own use had passed the kicking and lunging stage and I had become sufficiently confident to look at the landscape instead of watching their ears, he usually concluded they were “pretty well broken” and that he must try out a new one. This trying out process went on indefinitely, for Owen’s New England conscience gave him no peace apparently while an unbroken horse remained in his possession. It was a form of duty.

When we had guests we used, what my husband was pleased to call, a gentle team, one that started off decorously with all their feet on the ground instead of in the air, but one day when we were expecting some friends from Wyoming he could not resist driving a new pair of beautiful bay horses when we went to meet them. I remained behind.

The dinner hour passed and no Owen; additional hours went by and late at night he came in dusty, dirty and scratched.

In response to a perfect volley of questions he explained that he was all right, but the Lawtons had telegraphed they had been detained, and then he added, as quite an unimportant detail, that “the horses had run away.” He had the expression of a fond and indulgent parent, and as he did not rise to the defense of his pet team when I called them “miserable brutes” I knew his pride, at least, had suffered.

“You see,” he resumed, “your new sewing machine and some other freight was at the station, so when I found the Lawtons were not coming I thought I’d bring it over. I had the crystal clock, too.” Owen looked so sheepish I had to laugh, although the clock had been a wedding present which we had sent up to the jeweler to be regulated.

“Is it smashed?”

“Oh, no,” he reassured me, “but I don’t know how well it will run. I got out to close the gate beyond the railroad when a confounded freight engine whistled and the horses started. I was holding the reins in my hand, of course, and tried to climb in the back of the wagon, but couldn’t make it on account of the load. I ran along the side until the horses went so fast I fell down and when they began to drag me I let go of the reins. They ran all over that inclosure, the wagon upset and canned tomatoes, sewing machine and crystal clock were strewn everywhere. I caught the horses finally, but the wagon was smashed so I had to walk back to Becker’s, get his wagon and pick up all the freight—that’s what delayed me. I’m dreadfully sorry about the sewing machine and the clock, but I don’t believe they are much hurt.”

He was very contrite, was my husband, but it didn’t last long, that sense of duty was too insistent. A very short time after, he was alone, driving another team, with a horse he had just bought, tied to the tug. The new horse, frightened at a dead animal in the lane, jumped, broke the tug, plunged forward, pulled the neck yoke off, the buggy tongue stuck into the ground as the horses ran, the buggy heaved up in the air and pitched Owen out. It landed so close to a fence post his head was scratched, but he might have been killed. As long as he had escaped, this runaway had its amusing side, too. He was bringing home a quantity of china nest-eggs which followed when he was thrown out, and he said for a minute it fairly snowed nest-eggs; the ground was white with them.

Owen and his horses! I never could decide whether it was more nerve-racking to go with him or stay behind, so I usually took the chance and went. The experiences we had! I wonder we ever survived that horse-breaking period, but only once did we face a fate from which there seemed only one chance in a thousand of escaping with our lives.

We were driving a buckskin horse Owen had just bought and a newly broken mare, a handsome, high spirited creature called Beauty. She danced and she pranced and forged ahead of the new horse which became nervous and excited in trying to keep up with her.

We were going up a long hill. Beauty was pulling and tugging on the bit when suddenly she gave a toss to her head and to our horror we saw the bridle fall back around her neck. The bit had broken. Like a flash she was off, the other horse running with her. Owen spoke to them. He wound the reins about his arms and pulled on them with all his strength.

At the top of the hill there was a fairly level space where Owen tried to circle them, hoping to tire them out, but he had no control over Beauty and she wheeled about starting back over the road we had come, the buggy bouncing and swaying behind. There was a fence corner with an old post standing about ten feet from it. The horses headed straight for it. I closed my eyes, expecting that we would be wrecked, but they turned and raced across a gulch, the buggy lurched, tipped, struck one side and then the other, but by a miracle did not upset.

I saw that Owen was trying to head them into a fence and braced myself for the shock, realizing that he hoped to entangle them in the barbed wire and so throw them, but just as we reached it Beauty veered to one side almost overturning the buggy. We were so close the skirt of Owen’s fur coat caught on the barbs and was instantly torn to ribbons and we heard the vibrating “ping” of the wire along its entire length as the wheels struck the fence.

On and on the maddened horses raced, up hills, down long slopes, through gulches in which it seemed we must be wrecked, until at length we reached the crest of a hill at the bottom of which, angling with the fence, ran a deep gulch with high cut banks. We knew that if the frantic horses reached the edge of that bank at the rate we were going there was no escape for us and we should plunge over the embankment with the horses. To jump was impossible. I was in despair, realizing that Owen, pulling on the horses with all his might, was nearly exhausted.

“Owen, isn’t there something I can do?” It was the first time a word had been spoken.

“Pull on the Buckskin,” he answered quickly.

I leaned forward and seized the rein with both hands as far down as I could reach and threw myself back with all my weight. The Buckskin was pulled back on his haunches, Beauty stopped. Owen handed me the reins, another moment he was at their heads calling to me to jump. In that instant before jumping I lived an eternity, for if the horses had started again I should have gone to certain death alone.

I was so weak with fright and sudden relief when I felt the firm earth under my feet I could scarcely stand but I had to get to the Buckskin’s head and hold on to him, for Owen had his hands full with Beauty, who began to rear and plunge. It was no time for nerves. The horses were finally unhitched. Owen led Beauty and I, the Buckskin. Leaving the buggy on the edge of that yawning gulch, we walked the five miles back to the ranch.

VII

THE MEASURE OF A MAN

The Bohms had gone. The last load of furniture, upon which old Bohm perched like an ill-omened bird, had disappeared through the gate on the top of the hill. At last, after six months of vexation and trouble, Owen and I could live our own life and run the ranch without interference.

Bohm had tried to wriggle out of every clause in his contract. He had delayed gathering and turning over the stock by every means and had invented a thousand excuses for staying on from week to week. It had made it very difficult and had exasperated Owen. If he hadn’t been wise and patient beyond words, Bohm’s bones long before would have mingled with those of his reputed victims in the old root cellar. I had a different end planned for him each day, but none seemed really fitting. Owen had gone on in his own way, however, insisting upon every part of the contract being fulfilled and reducing Bohm to impotent rage by his quiet firmness.

Mrs. Bohm had recovered from her “fainting spells” and her husband was furious to think he had sold the ranch. In desperation he finally sent to San Francisco for his brother, who was a lawyer, to see if there was any possibility of getting out of the contract. The “Judge” was a nice old chap, who looked like an amiable Mormon with a long beard. He soon settled the question.

“Why, Jim, you wanted to sell out, you signed the contract and you have your money. You’ll have to stay with your bargain now, whether you like it or not.”

We always remembered him kindly for this and for a story he told. We had been discussing the Chinese as servants and he said:

“Well, I had one for two years, but I don’t want any more. I want to know what I’m eating and with those heathen you are never sure.

“It had been raining very hard one day when Wong came to me in the afternoon and said:

“‘Judge, him laining outside, me gottee no meat for dinner.’

“I told him that we would do without meat for it was raining too hard for anyone to go out who didn’t have to. Wong looked dejected for he liked meat. He turned to go out of the room, when his eyes fell on the cat. His face brightened with a sudden inspiration.

“‘Have meat for dinner! Kill’em cat!’

“Kill the cat! What on earth do you mean?

“‘Less, kill’em cat,’ he repeated in a matter of fact tone, ‘him sick anyhow.’”

We had asked the Bohms to take their meals with us, but only Mrs. Bohm came to our table. Bohm preferred to eat with the men. We suspected that he was trying to cause trouble. Charley unconsciously confirmed our suspicions. He was always conversational and seized the opportunity to talk while fixing my window screen.

“Say, Mrs. Brook, you’d orter seen Bill this mornin’. He was eatin’ flapjacks to beat time and was just reachin’ for more, when old Bohm, with that mean way of his, began slammin’ Mr. Brook. He was sayin’ you folks thought you was too good to eat in the kitchen with us common fellers and had to have a separate dinin’ room, when Bill just riz up out of his chair so sudden it went over backwards, and believe me, his eyes had sparks in ’em when he came back at the old man.

“‘Tain’t that the Brooks think that they’re too good, but there’s some folks too stinkin’ common for anybody to eat with’—and out of the door he walked and all the boys fol-lered him, leavin’ Bohm alone there facin’ all them flapjacks. I reckon he’d a rather faced them flapjacks than Bill, though,—Gee, Bill was some hot,” and Charley’s blue eyes sparkled at the reminiscence.

It was exactly as I thought; the boys despised Bohm and were absolutely loyal to Owen.

After this episode, Owen had a long talk with Bill and a short, heated interview with Bohm, which resulted in the old man’s reluctant, but hasty, departure.

I drew a long breath of relief when I saw the last wagon disappear and looked up fully expecting to see the dove of peace pluming herself on our roof-tree. But apparently doves in the cattle country never alight,—they just pass by.

Owen had bought several thousand acres of land from the railroad. A car of barbed wire for the fence, which was to encircle the entire ranch, was at the station. Our land was now in one solid block with the exception of a few acres of Government land which could only be acquired by homestead entry. This limited acreage in the great checkerboard was all that remained of the “free range.”

At this juncture Owen was served with a notice by the United States Marshal forbidding him to build the fence. It would enclose Government land. Every mile of the proposed fence would have been on ground which he had bought, paid for, and on which he was paying taxes—but still—he could not fence it. “Government land must remain uninclosed.” It made no difference, apparently, what happened to the cattleman whose money was tied up in property he could not use. Government land must remain free and open to the public. But, while those few acres of free range remained open to the public, thousands of acres of our unprotected land remained open also. Everyone used it. The ranchmen for miles around, learning that Owen was forbidden to fence, gathered all their cattle and threw them onto our land.

It was a very serious problem. Our range was being destroyed, the grass was eaten off so closely nothing remained for winter range. Our full-blooded Hereford breeding stock was of little use to us. All our money was invested in land and cattle and there was only one thing left to do,—put riders on our range to drive the other cattle off.

Upon this solution of the problem the dove of peace promptly departed and we entered upon a long, hard struggle for the possession and use of what was our own. Owen was faced, not only with financial failure, but absolute ruin. The future was far from bright, but when an old school-mate came with her husband to visit us it seemed positively brilliant by contrast.

Alice Joice and I had been devoted friends for years. The summer before we had spent in Europe, where I had left her, deep in the study of Art, to which she intended “to devote” her life.

“It is so commonplace to marry, Esther,” these were her parting words; “any woman can marry—but so few can have a real career.”

Alice’s “career” had abruptly ended in “commonplace matrimony,” for she had just married a Mr. Van Winkle from Brooklyn, a man I had never met. They were touring the West and were most anxious to include our ranch. I was very eager to see them so I wrote, urging her to come, but asked her to let us know when to expect them, so there would be no mistake about our being at the station.

I was particularly anxious to have them see ranch life at its best for they were our first guests. The house looked very attractive with all our own furniture and wedding presents in place, but I thought the guest room floor might be improved so I painted it Saturday afternoon. Then everything went wrong: the wind-mill pump failed to work, the whole pipe had to be pulled out of the well; we were without running water in the house and couldn’t have a fire in the kitchen range, so rations were extremely light.

Supper, consisting chiefly of sardines, awaited Owen, who was trying to get some of the grease off his hands, when a homesteader by the name of Hamm, his wife, sister and five children drove up. He had come to see Owen on business and they were invited in to supper.

The table was lengthened and reset, more sardines were opened and we were just ready to sit down when my Aunt, who was standing near the window, exclaimed:

“Who on earth is that!”

Who, indeed! Alice Joice and her husband with a team they had hired at the station.

Having a strong heart I did not faint, but left Auntie to help the maid make the necessary additions to the table—and sardines, while Owen and I hurried out to greet them.

“Hello, dearie, here we are,” Alice called from the wagon as I approached. “Clarence and I thought it would be such fun to surprise you. How-do-you-do, Mr. Brook, I want you to meet my husband, Mr. Van Winkle.” Alice jumped off the step and threw herself into my arms. “Oh, Esther, isn’t this fun?” Gay, inconsequent Alice, from her city home, never considered for a moment that a surprise _could_ be anything but joyous.

If I had met him in Egypt, I should have known that her husband’s name was Van Winkle—Clarence Van Winkle, it couldn’t have been anything else.

He was pale and tall and thin and rigid. The inflexibility of the combined ancestral spines had united in his back bone. He might break, he could never bend. My imagination failed when I tried to picture the meeting between the heir to the Van Winkle name and the Hamms. It was far worse than anything I could ever have imagined.

Alice was very sweet; she talked all the time, patted the five little Hamms and won their mother’s heart by asking their names and ages, but in acknowledging the introduction Clarence only bowed slightly, a movement which required great effort, then relapsed into silence immediately, scrutinizing the Hamm family through his glasses as though they were rare animals in a Zoo. Mrs. Hamm and her sister were stupefied and did not speak a word, but Mr. Hamm, a truly sociable person from Oklahoma, continually addressed Clarence as “young feller,” which produced the same effect as a violent chill, and when he joyously jogged a Van Winkle elbow to emphasize some pleasantry, Clarence firmly moved his chair out of reach of the defiling touch.