Part 8

I came back into the kitchen.

“Now, Bill, tell me about it. What happened and where is Bohm?”

“On his way back to Denver in the baggage car,” announced Bill, draining the last drop from the glass he still held in his hand.

I started, “Oh, Bill, you didn’t kill him?”

“No, but I wisht I had,” he said calmly. “He’d oughter be dead, the old skunk, trying to poison all them sheep.”

“Poison the sheep; what sheep?”

“Your sheep,” Bill’s brows contracted as he looked at me. “Your sheep,” he repeated, his voice rising as I scarcely seemed able to grasp his meaning. “All the sheep at Hay Gulch Camp, that’s what he came out here for, and he’d a done it, too, if it hadn’t been for that kid in there.” Bill jerked his head in the direction of my room.

“Ted?” I asked, my emotion stifling my voice.

“Ted,” Bill affirmed, “he caught him at it red-handed, and probably saved two thousand sheep from bein’ dead this minute.”

“How on earth did he find out?”

Bill straightened up in his chair.

“Them eyes of his’n don’t miss much, I’m here to tell you, and his everlastin’ snoopin’ around done some good after all.” Bill’s eyes glowed with pride. “Yesterday, before Bohm left, Ted come across him mixin’ a lot of stuff with some grain, and, of course, had to know all about it. The old man finally told him he was fixin’ to poison the prairie-dogs on his claim, bit he was so peevish about it, Ted said he didn’t believe him, and mistrusted somethin’ was wrong.

“The kid didn’t say nothin’ to me about it; had some fool notion about playin’ detective, I reckon, at any rate he got up along about four o’clock and rode out to Bohm’s claim to do a little reconorterin’.”

Bill reluctantly put the glass down and tipped back in his chair. “He hid his horse in the gulch and crope up in the grass like an Injin. The herder wasn’t nowhere in sight and the sheep was still in the corral, but old Bohm was there all right, fixin’ little piles of that poisoned wheat just where the sheep would come acrost it the first thing.”

“Oh, Bill, that’s the worst thing I ever heard!” I was sick at the mere thought.

Bill was too engrossed to pay attention to the interruption.

“Ted said he was comin’ back to tell me, but he got so excited when he seen what Bohm was up to, he never thought of nothin’ but stoppin’ him. The old man was stoopin’ over with his back to Ted, and the kid gave a yell for the herder and ran for Bohm and before he could straighten up Ted was on top of him.”

Bill scarcely paused for breath—“the old man reached for his gun, but Ted was too quick for him and knocked it out of his hand, and when I came up, there they was rollin’ all over the prairie, first one on top and then the other.”

Bill looked toward the door of my room, reflectively—“I kinder felt there was somethin’ wrong when I left here, and believe me, I didn’t spare my cayuse none gettin’ there neither, and I didn’t get there none too soon.”

I was incapable of speech. I just stared at Bill.

“There ain’t no doubt about Bohm’s bein’ ready to kill him; he was on top then and reachin’ for his throat. I didn’t stop to ask no questions. I jest grabbed him, and pulled him off of Ted. He was white as chalk and ready to eat us both alive, but I hung on to him while Ted got up cryin’, ‘Look what he’s done, Bill, look what he’s done,’ and pointed at somethin’ on the ground.”

Bill’s eyes were like two live coals. “Bohm was cussin’ like a steam engine ’bout the kid’s jumpin’ him when he was puttin’ out poison for the prairie-dogs. I just took one look around and seen all them piles of poison wheat there by the corral when there wasn’t a prairie-dog within two miles. I—well, I aint goin’ to tell you what I said, Mrs. Brook, ’taint fit for you to hear.”

Bill looked down and turned the glass on the table around and around. He looked up again and smiled, but his brows contracted as he went on—“We had words then, sure enough. All of a sudden Bohm made a lunge and caught the handkerchief round my neck with one hand and reached for somethin’ with the other, and the first thing I knew he was slashin’ at me with a pocket knife. I guess I saw red then, ’cause I knocked him down and nearly pounded the life out of him.”

Bill stopped a moment—“His eyes was rollin’ back in his head and his tongue was hangin’ out and there was a pool of blood ’round us, three yards across.” Bill’s description was so vivid I shut my eyes. “I reckon I’d killed him if Ted hadn’t tromped my legs and kinda brought me to myself. He’d oughter been killed, but I let him up then and told Ted to go for my rope. We tied his hands and legs. I guess he had about all he wanted for he wasn’t strugglin’ much.” Bill smiled grimly. “We carried him into the cabin, and there was the Mexican lying in his bunk—doped. We knew who done it all right, and I tell you we didn’t handle Bohm like no suckin’ infant when we laid him down, neither.”

Bill’s face was stern and set and I shared his indignation too much to trust myself to speak.

“We left him there and went to get the wheat out of the way before we opened the corral gates for the sheep. Thanks to Ted, Bohm hadn’t had time to put much around. He’s a great little kid, that boy.” Bill’s voice broke.

“Bless his heart,” I said, my own heart filled with gratitude and tenderness for the plucky little chap in the other room. Bill’s eyes were moist, but his voice was steady again.

“Steve and Charley came up just then with the supply wagon, so Steve set Charley to herd the sheep. We loaded Bohm into the wagon and Steve took him over to the railroad. He said he’d see he got on the train all right.” Bill grinned, “You’re rid of Bohm for good now, Mrs. Brook, for I kinda think he gathered from what me and Steve said the ranch wouldn’t be no health resort for him if he ever showed his ugly face round here again.”

“Oh, Bill, I’m so thankful; it makes me sick when I think what might have happened.”

“Don’t thank me, Mrs. Brook, I ain’t done nothin’.” Bill’s face was red with embarrassment as he stood up. “Ted’s the one to thank, he’s some kid, believe me,” and Bill’s eyes were very tender.

“Let’s go in and see how he’s making it.” Bill followed me into the room.

Ted was sitting up on the couch, regarding his battered visage in my hand-glass with the greatest interest. I could see at once he was in no mood for emotion or petting.

“Hello, I’m all right,” he murmured with a one-sided grin. “Say, Bill, wasn’t it great? I wouldn’t have missed it for a million dollars.”

He sank back with a sigh of supreme satisfaction. “I just wish I could remember all the things he called me. I want to spring them on the fellows when I go back.”

Bill looked at him with genuine concern. “See here, kid,” he said decidedly, “you want to forget all them things as quick as you can. Don’t you go springin’ any such language back where you come from. I’m no innocent babe myself, but I’m here to tell you old Bohm’s cussin’ made anything I ever heard sound like a Sunday School piece. You forget it now, pronto,” he commanded as he went out of the door. “It’s a reflection on me and Mrs. Brook.”

After Bill had gone, Ted looked at himself again, then at me. “What do you suppose Aunt Elizabeth would say if she could see me now?” We both laughed.

“I would be a ‘disgrace to my family and position’ now, sure enough.” He felt his blackened eye tenderly.

I sat down on the couch beside him. “You will never be more of a credit to your family than you are at this minute, Ted, nor more of a man.”

He looked up, for my voice shook a little. He knew what I meant and his lips twitched as he patted my hand gently, and turned his face away.

XII

BLIZZARDS

It was just like Louise Reynolds to arrive on the wings of a blizzard, wearing a straw hat and spring suit. Louise led the seasons, she never followed them, and she preceded that particular storm by about two hours; but she was justified, for it was April and she was on her way from California.

In this land of the unexpected even the weather disregarded all established precedents. A glorious Indian Summer night extended into January, or a sudden blizzard would swoop down from the North in October or April and leave us snowed in for days.

That is exactly what happened upon this occasion and most of Louise’s visit was spent in shovelling snow for the pure joy of the exercise. That energetic young person had to do something in lieu of tennis or golf.

The prairies were covered with a fluffy mantle of purest white, great drifts filled the gulches and the roads were utterly obliterated. Long after the storm the men had to go about on horseback for no wagon could be moved through the deep snow.

At this juncture Louise announced that she had all of her reservations through to Baltimore, where she was to officiate as bridesmaid. She was obliged to go and we had to take her to the railroad.

We could scarcely go on horseback with baggage, there wasn’t a sleigh in the country, certainly none on the ranch, but if Necessity was the Mother of Invention, Owen was a near relative. He never failed to find some way of meeting the most difficult problem. If Louise must go it devolved upon him to see that she reached the station and so he produced a sled, a disreputable old affair, used for the exalted purpose of hauling dead animals to “the dump”—but still it was a sled and under Owen’s direction it was scrubbed and transformed into the most luxurious equipage by having a packing box nailed on the back and covered with rugs. Louise and I perched on the box, with heavy robes tucked in about us, the suit cases were at our feet and Owen sat on the trunk in front to drive.

There was only one draw-back, the sled had no tongue to keep it from running on to the heels of the horses, so Owen cut a hole in the bottom of the sled through which he stuck a broom-stick. My task was to work this improvised brake when we went down hill by jabbing the broom-stick into the snow. It worked beautifully except that the friction against the hard snow broke pieces of it off and it grew perceptibly shorter as we advanced.

In order to avoid some especially deep gulches we left the valley and followed a high ridge. It was much longer, but we had allowed the entire day for the trip. There was no danger of becoming lost as long as we could see, for we knew too well the country and the general direction to be followed.

No incident marred the joy of that day. When the horses floundered and almost disappeared from sight in a snow-filled gulch, leaving the sled stranded like an Ark on a gleaming Ararat, we had only to dig the horses out with a shovel which had been taken for the purpose and after getting them on the level ground, go back and hitch a long rope to the sled, draw it across the gulch and proceed upon our way.

The light of the sun upon the snow was so intense it was necessary to wear colored glasses to avoid snow blindness, and being muffled in furs, we looked like three bears in goggles. Our wraps kept us perfectly warm and it was a merry ride. The adventure filled us with joy as we glided over the trackless world in which we alone moved.

There was no suggestion of dreariness or desolation in the scene. Under the magic touch of the sun the world burst forth into a miracle of glory and beauty which held us spellbound. The sky was cloudless, not a shadow fell across that dazzling white expanse, which flashed and sparkled with all the prismatic colors. Far to the west Pike’s Peak stood, a marvel of varying lights and shadows, its head resting on the soft blue bosom of the sky. Its commanding height had filled the Indian of the Plains with worshipful awe, it was to him “the Gate of Heaven, the abiding place of the Great Spirit.” According to his own testimony, the one inevitable duty in the life of the Indian is the duty of prayer—and how often as he looked upon that distant mountain must the red hunter have paused in the midst of the vast prairies, his soul uplifted and an unspoken prayer on his lips!

The whole aspect of the country was changed, all the familiar landmarks were gone. Except for the hills, the surface of the prairie was perfectly level as though the Great Spirit had stretched his hand forth from that mystic mountain and passing it over the world had left it smooth and stainless.

It was a wonderful experience, and when toward evening we reached the railroad we were thrilled and triumphant over our accomplishment. The night was spent in the little four-room “hotel,” we saw Louise safely on board the eastbound express the next morning, then returned to the ranch.

To be out after a blizzard is one thing, to be out in one is quite another, and we always grew apprehensive when the sky became suddenly overcast and the snow began to fall from leaden clouds. What if the storm should catch the herders and the sheep too far away from the camp?

They were all warned to range their sheep to the North if it threatened to storm, as most of the blizzards came from that direction and the sheep would go before the wind back to camp and safety. But they will not face it and, if unmindful of his orders, the herder took them South and a sudden storm came, he could not turn his sheep back to the camp; they would drift on and on before the wind, sometimes plunging over a bank to be buried beneath the drifting snow or piling up and smothering each other.

One winter just as Owen and I were starting home from California we received a telegram from Steve saying that during a blizzard the buck herd had been lost. Owen had some very important business which detained him when we reached Denver, so he asked me to go on to the ranch, have Steve organize the men into searching parties and look through every gulch in the vicinity for any discolored holes on the top of the drifts which would be caused by the breath of the sheep if they were under the snow. For two days the men searched and finally came to a deep bank of snow on the top of which were found the discolored holes they sought; they dug down and discovered the bucks. A few had been smothered, but most of them were taken out alive after having been buried for ten days! During the storm the herder had left them and the poor distracted things had drifted over an embankment and were entombed under the snow.

When anyone speaks of “good-for-nothing Mexicans” I think of Fidel, a mere lad, who had taken his sheep South on a clear morning, but was overtaken by a storm before he could get them back to the corrals. He and his dog did everything they could do to turn them, but they drifted farther and farther away. Fidel stayed with them, guiding them away from the gulches until they reached a railway cut. There Steve found them twenty-four hours later when we feared that Fidel had perished with his sheep. Facing death alone in the freezing wind and blinding, smothering snow, hour after hour he had kept his sheep from piling up. He not only saved them all, but they were in better condition than many in the corrals at the camps. Not for a moment had he left them. His hands and feet were frozen; he barely escaped freezing to death and on that day we learned the true meaning of “Fidelity.”

* * * * *

Then once more Fate took a hand in our affairs and a blizzard changed the whole course of our lives.

We owned our land and no one could encroach upon us, but after a few years we began to notice forlorn little shacks built here and there on the open range by the poor home-seekers who, attracted by the prospect of free land, had begun “homesteading.” They built flimsy little houses, scratched up the surface of the prairie for a few inches and raised pitiful, straggling crops. The settlers were coming in! The opening wedge of that great onrush had been thrust deep into the heart of the prairie. In the undisputed possession of our own land we were not disturbed. While we knew that it meant the occupation of the free range and the passing of the large ranches, eventually, we scarcely realized how soon it would come and were not prepared to receive an offer from an Eastern syndicate to buy the entire ranch—to cut it into small units to be sold as farms.

The era of “dry-farming” had just begun, when by scientific methods, deep ploughing and the conservation of all moisture, dry land might be successfully cultivated without irrigation. It was a dream of the future of the prairie region, impossible to visualize, and I laughed in my ignorance, as Owen read me the letter.

“How perfectly absurd. Imagine trying to farm out here; the grangers would starve to death in a year unless they had stock of some sort. Surely you would never think of selling out?”

“I don’t know, Esther, the homesteaders can’t come on to our deeded land, but they are filing on all the Government land. In a short time there will be no more free range, and did you ever stop to consider that our land will soon be so valuable that we can’t afford to run sheep on it?”

In that last sentence I saw the handwriting on the wall. It was only a question of time and this phase, too, of our life would pass.

In the East life seems to be static, but in the West it is in a state of flux and conditions are constantly changing.

Perhaps I had inherited the static state of mind for I had taken it for granted that all the rest of our days were to be spent there on the ranch under the shadow of the mountain. Suddenly a realization of the facts swept over me. In a sense we had been pioneers, we had blazed a trail that others were to follow and like the Indians we, too, were destined to move on. However, before you are thirty to regard yourself as a hoary-headed pioneer requires a series of mental gymnastics and, while my brain was going through a few preparatory exercises, I did not take the question of selling out very seriously. After all those years of struggle just as it had been brought to perfection, after we had put into it the best of our life, youth, energy and work, a part of our very selves, it did not seem possible that we could part with the ranch. Owen felt much as I did, but he was the first to realize that we had come again to the parting of the ways and that a decision must be made.

Yet—in the end—it wasn’t the financial consideration nor a deep conviction that the future development of the country would be retarded if we remained, but an unexpected blizzard which turned the scale and set us adrift again.

* * * * *

The sun rose clear on the 19th of October, but during the morning it began to grow cloudy.

Owen and several of the men were at the railroad station where they were shipping lambs. During the afternoon the wind began to blow, it grew much colder and snow fell.

The next morning it was storming very hard and Steve, after arranging to have hay hauled to the various camps, went out on horseback to see that all the sheep were kept in the corrals. I was greatly relieved when Owen got home in the middle of the afternoon. Ten thousand lambs had been loaded and started on their way in spite of the storm, but the drive back to the ranch had been very hard, for hour by hour the storm increased in fury. The ground was covered and even the dull grey sky was hidden by dense clouds of powdery snow which did not seem to fall upon the earth but was blown in long horizontal lines across the prairies by the force of a mighty gale. It filled the gulches and piled in deep drifts. It was driven against the house with such force it sifted through the smallest crack. The windows on the North and West were covered with a solid coating of snow, the wind whistled and moaned and tore at the shutters as if trying to carry them with it on a wild race over the plains. It was impossible to see the corrals, even the garden fence was lost behind the driving, swirling snow. To open the door was to inhale a freezing gust of snow-laden air, millions of icy particles blinded the eyes and took away the breath.

We knew that the sheep were all in the corrals, but we feared that unless the herders watched them carefully they would pile up as the snow drifted over the high sides of the inclosure. The rest of the stock was protected and my heart was filled with thankfulness that Owen and the men had been able to reach the ranch. They went about the place like white wraiths doing the necessary things. Above the howling of the wind not a sound could be heard; a shout was carried miles away as soon as it left the lips. By five o’clock it was dark.

About eight o’clock, Mary came in and told Owen that Steve wanted to see him. When Owen returned, instead of coming into the living-room, he went to the closet, took down his short, fleece-lined riding coat and began to put it on.

“What’s the matter, Owen, you are not going out?”

“I must,” he said, quietly, winding a long scarf about his neck, “Steve says that Dorn went out yesterday afternoon with a load of hay for the camp on Six Shooter; he should have come back last night or certainly this morning. He’s new and doesn’t know the country and he may be lost. I’m going to see if I can find him.”

My heart stood still; the camp on Six Shooter gulch was fully eight miles away. Eight miles in that storm! It did not seem possible that a man could live to go a mile.

“Oh, Owen, I can’t let you go! Don’t you suppose he is at the camp?”

“I don’t know, he may be, but I must go and find out. We can’t take a chance on a man’s being lost.” In the face of that argument there was nothing to say and nothing to do but accept it.

“Who is going with you?”

“No one”—Owen did not look at me as he answered—“I can’t ask any of the men to face this storm.”

I understood; he couldn’t require any of his men to risk their lives. A hand of ice closed about my heart and deadened every sensibility. Like a machine I went about helping Owen get ready and at last went to the kitchen to bring him some coffee just before he left. A man was standing by the door muffled in wraps. I stood still.

“Why, Bill, where have you been?”

“I ain’t ‘been’, I’m goin’. I’m goin’ with Mr. Brook. A man ain’t got no business out a night like this alone.”

“Bill!” It was all I could say—but he understood.

When Owen came out he tried to dissuade him, but Bill was determined.

“I know I don’t have to go, Mr. Brook, you never asked me, but I’m a goin’, there ain’t nothin’ can keep me.”

I had never seen him so serious, all the old half bantering tone was gone and they went out together, master and man, each risking his life for the sake of another.

I tried to watch them but instantly they were lost to my sight as a vague grey cloud closed about them.

How the night passed I do not know. I kept the fires up and the coffee hot and walked miles, back and forth, back and forth. I did not think of sleeping. It was useless to try to read. I could not see the words—the printed page was blank and I could only see the figures of two men on horseback, beaten, buffeted, fighting for their lives against the cruel snow-laden gale. I saw them separated, perhaps, trying to get through the gulches on their floundering horses, or walking to keep from freezing and then perhaps exhausted—lying down to rest while that last deadly sensation of sleepiness crept over them.

Daylight came at last, but still I walked. I pushed my breakfast away untasted and tried to occupy myself with the duties of the day. I felt as though I should scream aloud if that howling wind did not cease, but hour after hour passed and there was no other sound. The men came and went about their work quietly, speaking but little and then in subdued tones as in the presence of death; over us all hung the pall of terrifying uncertainty.