CHAPTER XIV

FIGHTING THE ITCH

Monroe and the three men left to him after Bow-Wow had departed for Twin River and Wayback, in the company of Whitby, were too small a force to attempt the round-up, so they put in the day riding over those sections of the range farthest removed from the Hog Back, examining every cow they found. At nightfall they had the pleasure of reporting to Buck that the entire portion of the range along the Little Jill, extending from the river to the middle of the ranch, was free from infection; as a matter of fact the conclusion reached in council was that only that portion of range bounded by the Black Jack, the south line, and Blackfoot Creek needed to be cleaned up. This meant that two-thirds of the ranch was free from the itch, and the infected third contained less than a fourth of the Double Y cows.

Plans for the round-up were considered and soon arrived at. All the men with the exception of three, were to be actively engaged in the round-up. They were to start from the south line and drive northwest towards the Hog Back. The Black Jack made a natural barrier on the west and would hold the herd safely on that side. The three other punchers were to ride even with the drive line, but on the other side of Blackfoot Creek, and keep ambitious cows from crossing onto the non-infected portions of the range. This arrangement would constantly force the cattle onto the wedge-shaped range at the juncture of the two waters. Here the herd could be dipped and driven across the shallow Blackfoot onto a clean territory, where they would be held for further observation. Then if the rest of the range showed signs of infection the round-up and dipping could be carried on again at other points. If a strict line could be maintained along the Blackfoot the Hog Back range would be fenced off effectually from the non-infected cattle on the other parts of the ranch. The question of building an actual fence to separate the Hog Back range from the rest was gone into thoroughly and the decision was unanimous that twelve miles of fence was too big a proposition to be attempted at that moment; if necessary it could be put up later when it was found that patrolling the creek was inadvisable. But perhaps a side light can be thrown on this quiet decision when it is remembered how fervently a cowman hated fences. These men were all of the old school and preferred to keep barb-wire as a theory and not a fact.

That evening Bow-Wow returned with a crowd of cow-punchers of varying degrees of fitness, all eager to take cards in any game at fifty dollars a month. The majority of them were not up to the standards Buck cherished; if they had been, they would not have been waiting for a job. But it was certain they knew how to punch cows, enough for the demands of the moment--and Jake waxed eloquent and sarcastic when he hazarded a guess as to when they had eaten their last square meal. Perhaps, after all, digging huge ditches would not be so bad, for cooking three meals a day for twenty-odd hungry men was more of a task than he cared to tackle. But Bow-Wow had exercised some intelligence of his own, as after events showed. Two of his squad were ex-cooks. The "ex" is used advisedly, for if ever cooks were "ex" it was these two; this was the decision voiced simultaneously by twenty hungry men at the first meal prepared by the two. Sam Hawkins suggested that they had quit cooking to save their lives, and regretted that they had so made their choice.

The drive went ahead without more than the usual bluster and confusion, and the end of the first day found the round-up well under way. Outlying free range had been thoroughly combed, in which assistance had been given by neighboring ranches; Buck, in carrying out his policy of supplying his own help, had not failed to notify other owners and foremen that they could rely on the Double Y for its contingent of men when the general round-up should take place. The drivers were divided into two squads for day work and three for night riding around the herd; the two-squad arrangement was made for meal times, one squad eating while the other worked. There was no time lost at meals because each of the ex-cooks, in a chuck wagon alloted to him, preceded the drive and was never very far from the field of operations. Thus were system and order gained the first day, which meant time saved in the end.

Buck intended to spend his nights in the ranch house as usual, and when he gained it the first night he found two things of interest. The first announced itself by sending him to his hands and knees within three feet of his front door; the second was a telegram from McAllister saying that a special had the right of way, and from the wording Buck could see it pounding into the Northwest, over crossings and past switch towers, its careening red tail lights bearing a warning to would-be range-jumpers if they did but know it. The message further stated that the consignment was under the personal attention of a puncher who, having grown sick of the stock yards, was cheerfully availing himself of the opportunity of getting back to the open range at no expense. Buck sighed with relief as he realized that the ingredients of the dip were already on the way, and could not be sidetracked or lost without the subduing of a very irritable cow-puncher. As he put the message away he remembered the first thing that had impressed itself on him, and went out to take a look at it.

The light in his hand revealed the sodless strip fifty feet long and four feet wide. Its depth was to the under side of the grass, a matter of two or three inches. There was a stake at each corner of the bare rectangle and these supported a one-strand fence made of lariats.

Buck scratched his head and then growled a profane request to feel the head of the man who was responsible. He strode into the house and stopped in the kitchen door; and Jake very wearily turned around on his chair and looked at him with intent curiosity.

"What 'n h--l is that scalped grass for?" demanded Buck, evenly.

"That's th' beginnin' of ditch number one," replied Jake. "How 'd you like them lines, eh? Straight as a die. Took me all mornin' to lay 'em out like that."

"Did it? I congratulate you, Jake--likewise I sympathize with you. I reckon you 'll get it down a foot in a couple o' weeks, eh?"

"Oh, quicker'n that," modestly rejoined Jake.

"Did n't I tell you to dig them ditches close to where th' Blackfoot empties into th' Jack?" demanded Buck. "Are you figgerin' on extendin' it from here to there? I don't want a trench no fifteen miles long. To-morrow mornin' you ride with me an' I 'll show you where to dig. An' don't you bother stakin' it off exact, neither. I want them ditches all finished in _three_ days. Did you reckon I was goin' to drive two thousand head of itch cows fifteen miles so I could dip 'em bang up agin my own front door!"

Pickles bounced in, his rifle under his arm. "Hullo, Buck!" he cried. "Shot a coyote to-day!"

"Good, Pickles," smiled Buck. "Want a job shootin' a _man_ to-morrow?"

"Betcher life! Is it Dave?"

"No, it's Jake, here," replied Buck. "You take yore rifle an' come with me an' Jake to-morrow. If he don't dig fast enough to suit you, you shoot him in th' laig."

"Betcher life! Which leg?" asked Pickles, agog with anticipation.

"I 'm leavin' that to you, Pickles. You 're gettin' big enough to figger things out for yoreself."

"Will he limp like Hopalong?"

"Worse, mebby."

Jake, grinning, feared Pickles might be carried away with his zeal, and he put in a laughing objection; but he sobered instantly at Buck's sharp reply.

"I mean it. He 'll shoot if he 's a friend o' mine. I ain't goin' to lose a lot of cows 'cause I 've got a man too lazy to dig. You 've got yore orders, Pickles: obey 'em like a real Bar-20 puncher."

"Betcher life I will. Just like Hopalong Cassidy!"

Jake groaned at the intense earnestness in Pickles' declaration; to emulate the great Hopalong Cassidy was enduring honor in Pickles' eyes, and from past performances and several duels with the boy, Jake reached the conclusion that he was slated to do some very rapid digging on the morrow.

"Lemme use _yore_ rifle, Buck!" asked Pickles, his eyes shining with the joy of living. He knew he could do a great deal better with Buck's repeater, and the thought of exploding .45-70 cartridges was a delight beyond his wildest dreams.

Jake's heart stopped for the reply and he sighed with relief as Pickles' face fell; but the boy's spirits rose like a balloon. "All right, Buck; I can get him with my gun, though I ought to have a repeater."

* * * * *

The round-up went forward swiftly and the day that McAllister's special puffed into Wayback and snorted onto the siding, found the Hog Back country swept clean of cattle, the herd being held close to Jake's two big ditches. Buck had known the magnitude of the task he set for Jake and when the cook showed he was anxious to do his share of the work, Buck had told off men enough to help him get through in time. The digging was hard and unaccustomed work and the men were changed frequently, all but Jake; he seemed to consider it a matter of pride to stick to the job and made a point of throwing the last shovelful of dirt as well as the first; as a consequence his altitude was below normal for a week afterwards, and it was a month before he forgot to grunt with every breath.

The hauling of the lumber exercised the ingenuity and strained the resources of Jean LaFrance, the only man in the locality who possessed anything on wheels capable of carrying it. Inasmuch as he could ill spare the time, although sorely needing the money, it exhausted Jean's stock of oaths to the point where his own language failed him; even English, which he understood, seemed singularly tame and unworthy the occasion; so that he fell back on his carefully reserved specimens of German expletives, which he did not in the least understand, and these with constant repetitions carried him through. Two men, driving the two borrowed chuck wagons, succeeded in transporting the rest of the shipment, and Whitby, to his great satisfaction, found that McAllister had not forgotten his fee.

The junction of the Blackfoot with the Jack presented a busy scene. The close-packed blue-clay, which had made hard work for the diggers, now proved a help, the timbers fitting snug without backing. Meanwhile the more important part, the preparing of the solution, went on under the direction of Whitby; his calm handling and frequent active cooeperation without becoming warm or soiled was a wonder to see. Under the huge caldrons, which had been the first of the consignment to arrive, wood had been piled ready for the match; on bases made of logs stood rows of whiskey barrels; shallow troughs were filled and re-filled with water until the swelling wood took up and became water-tight. Far into the night they worked, and now the crackling fires were giving the night shift trouble with the snorting cattle. Weird shadows darted out over the ground, lengthened and vanished as the men moved about the fires, worked over the lime-slaking troughs or poured off the compound paste into the steaming caldrons. When the barrels were filled with the first lot of the mixture, Whitby relented and the men stumbled off to rest.

With the dawn they were at work again; and now the dipping troughs came into use as the saturated solution was drawn off from the barrels, leaving the sediment at the bottom, and dumped into the troughs, where water was added to reduce it to the required strength. Night was approaching again before the water arose to nearly the required level; the men were thoroughly tired and Whitby, reluctantly and as a result of a direct order from Buck, called a halt. Buck knew the temper of his men better than Whitby: at anything directly connected with range duties, provided they were familiar with it, they would work until they dropped; but this was something whose usefulness remained to be proven. Buck was too wise to push them in such a case, but he grinned cheerfully as he turned away from the reluctance on Whitby's face. The Britisher was surely a glutton for work.

The prudence of Buck's reasoning was shown by the eagerness with which the men responded to the call next morning. In less than an hour Whitby announced all ready and the men entered upon a scene which they individually and collectively swore repaid them for their trouble. At Whitby's shout, two of the men riding herd cut out the first bunch of cattle and drove them toward the dipping trough; the flimsily constructed horse corral swarmed with laughing, joking punchers who roped their mounts with more or less success in the first attempt, while outside the wranglers darted forward and back, wheeling on a pie dish, checking the more ambitious of the ponies that resented a confinement limited to a single line of lariats; saddles dropped onto recalcitrant backs and were cinched with a speed nothing short of marvellous to a layman, and the whooping punchers were jerked away to the herd.

The first lot of cows, some twenty in number, flirting their tails and snorting in angry impotence, entered the wide opening between a wedge-shaped pair of fences and galloped toward the narrow vent which led to the trough. And now was seen Buck's wisdom in continuing the fence along the edge of the troughs a few feet, both at entrance and exit: the first brute, a magnificent three-year-old, appeared to realize the crush that would come and spurted for the opening; the significance of the situation did not appeal to him until he was close to the edge; he slid to the very brink and gathered himself for a leap, but the fence was too high; the next instant the cattle behind, urged on by Cock Murray, whooping like an Indian, bumped into the hesitating brute and he fell forward into the trough with a bellow of rage and started on his swim to the other end.

When Cock Murray, with Slow Jack close behind, had followed the bunch between the fences, they were assailed by a chorus of shouts to which they paid no heed whatever. Slow Jack, being in the rear, caught a glimpse out of the tail of his eye of Whitby running and waving his arms; he looked around for the cause of so much excitement and was in time to see the second bunch, instead of being driven over to the other trough as they should have been, come thundering into the wedge and drive down upon him. Slow Jack shot up to the fence, threw one leg along the neck of his pony and skimmed through the opening he made for, with nothing to spare and a scratched saddle; after which he spent several profane seconds in telling the chaffing drivers what he thought of them. His annoyance was forgotten when they suddenly doubled up, shrieking with laughter, and pointed toward the shoot.

Slow Jack looked and then looked at them. The second bunch had gone galloping madly on to the narrow opening, against which they were wedged and dropping one by one as a third bunch pressed in after them. They were coming too rapidly and Ned Monroe, riding past from the other trough, was sending the next bunch in the proper direction and going on to the herd to put some sense of order into the heads of the rollicking punchers. Slow Jack quite failed to see anything funny in all this and said so with force and directness; he added, moreover, a prophecy regarding idiots, the fulfilment of which was due to take place in the near, in fact immediate, future, which threatened complete derangement of the internal economy of said idiots. The idiots were entirely oblivious. Jack was puzzled. He glanced ahead and noticed a lot more idiots. Disgusted with his vain attempt to get an explanation, he rode forward to see for himself.

Cock Murray, having quirted the last of the first bunch into the trough, became aware of the shouting, gesticulating men who had left their duties to run toward the fence to attract his attention. In the cross-fire of warnings he failed to understand any of them, but the rumbling rush behind brought him suddenly to a realization of his position. One glance and he saw it was too late to retreat. There was just one thing to do. "Holy mackerel!" gasped Cock. He put the quirt to his pony in a frenzy of blows and landed in the dipping mixture with a jump that carried his pony's feet to the bottom of the trough. Sputtering and swearing Cock went through to the end; it was useless, as he knew, to try to climb out over those smooth abrupt walls, and he was too obstinate to leave his saddle. Which was madder, Cock or the pony, it would be hard to say. It was when he went climbing up the cleated incline at the farther end that Slow Jack got his first inkling of the cause of mirth. He gave one astonished stare, made two or three odd noises in his throat, and then, gravely and in silence, dropped from his saddle to the ground. It was not until he lay at full length, the long reins of the bridle drooping from the bit and his pony gazing at him inquiringly, that he exploded--but then he laughed steadily for half an hour.

The cattle, which had not awaited these developments, were dropping into the trough with praise-worthy regularity and making their way to the other end; when about half way there and swimming resignedly, a kind-hearted puncher, wearing a delighted grin in addition to his regular equipment, and armed with a strong pole, forked at the business end, leaned forward swiftly, jammed the fork over the unsuspecting cow's head, and pushed zealously. The result was gratifying to the few on-lookers, and disconcerting to the cow so rudely ducked; just before the unfortunate bovine touched the sloping runway to dry earth, another grinning puncher repeated the dose. The cows, reluctant to enter the bath, showed no reluctance to leave it and the scene of their humiliation, and they lumbered away with a speed surprising to those whose ideas of cows are based upon observation of domesticated "bossies" in pasture in the East. But they were not allowed to run free, being driven slowly across a roughly constructed bridge to the farther side of the Blackfoot, onto the non-infected range, and held there.

"This yere trough is shore makin' some plenty of Baptists," grinned Chesty Sutton.

"Yep; but with Mormon inclinations," amended Bow-Wow.

"Bow to th' gents," reprimanded Chesty, ducking a cow. "You look like a drowned rat," he criticised.

"Bow agin," requested Bow-Wow, and the cow obeyed, with a show of fight when its head came up.

"Some high-falutin' picklin' factory," chuckled Chesty. "Messrs. Bow-Wow Baker an' Chesty Sutton, world's greatest mite picklers. Blue-noses, red-noses an' other kinds o' cow inhabitants a specialty. Give you a whole dollar, Bow-Wow, if you fall in."

"Is that just a plain hope, or a insinooation?" demanded the cheerful Bow-Wow. "I sleep next to you, so don't get too blamed personal. But we might put Jake in--though mebby his ain't th' right kind. Hey, Jake; come here."

"If you wants to see me, you come here," retorted the cook. "I 've seen all of them ditches _I_ wants to. An' I ain't takin' no chances with a couple o' fools, neither."

"Hey, Chesty!" called Bow-Wow, delighted. "Here comes that LX steer we had such a h--l of a time with in th' railroad pens. Soak him good! Ah, ha, my long-horned friend; you was some touchy an' peevish down there in Wayback. Take _that_--don't worry, Chesty 's been savin' some for you, too. _Hard_, Chesty! That's th' boy--bet he 's mad as a rattler."

"Look at that moth-eaten scab of a yearlin'," laughed Chesty, pointing. "Th' firm could declare dividends on th' mites we 'll pickle on her. _Souse_ she goes! Once more for luck--look at her steam up! H--l, _this_ ain't work--it's fun. Under you go, Alice dear. Next!"

"Here comes Kinkaid o' th' Cyclone," announced Cock Murray, riding up to take a hasty look at the operations before he returned to the herd for another bunch of cows.

Chesty handed his pole to Murray, grabbed up a lariat, and started for the newcomer, shouting: "Here comes some itch! Dip him, fellers! Quick!"

Kinkaid manoeuvred swiftly, grinning broadly. "If that stuff is warmer 'n th' water in th' Jack, why, I might be coaxed into it. Howd'y, boys; thought I 'd come over an' pick up some points."

"How you makin' out on th' Cyclone?" asked Buck.

"Bad--_very_ bad. We tried isolatin' th' mangy ones, but they 're dyin' like flies in frost time. Lost forty million so far an' I reckon th' other two 'll die to-morrow. We thought our north range was free, but they 're on that, too. We drove clean cows up in th' Rockin' Horse territory an' now they 're showin' signs o' havin' th' itch. Beats all how it travels."

Cock Murray listened intently, but held his peace. He thought he might explain how it had travelled toward the Rocking Horse.

"That's where we noticed it first," said Buck. "We found some o' yore cows on th' Hog Back, an' their trail left th' river just below th' Rockin' Horse."

Kinkaid looked surprised and asked questions. He sat very quietly for a few moments and then looked at Buck with a peculiar expression on his face. "Sick cows don't swim th' Jack, cold as it is now. I wonder who in h--l--?" he muttered, softly.

"We 're wonderin', too, Kinkaid," replied Buck, slowly. "It's lead or rope for anybody we ketch at it." Kinkaid nodded his emphatic endorsement of this.

Whitby was keeping a close watch on the tally of cattle as they emerged, comparing it with the amount of fresh mixture constantly being added to that already in the troughs, and he found reason to be thankful that he had ordered more than he expected to use. Any left over would make all the less needed at the fall shipment when, as he knew, the dipping would have to be repeated; not until then could they be assured that the disease was stamped out.

The first day's work finished less than half the herd, but they continued, the following day, until the last cow scrambled out. After which, as a matter of precaution, Buck gave the boys the fun of driving every pony through the mixture. What had been entertaining before now became side-splitting, for tired as they were, the savage natures of the furious victims drew energy from unexpected sources and made a scene well worth watching, and a little risky for those men waiting with ropes at the end of the dripping board. The cows were angry, but had neither the intelligence nor the fighting ability of the maddened animals who had only a short time before seemed to enjoy the discomfiture of the animals they were accustomed to drive and bully; and it was only agility and good luck that the flying hoofs landed on nothing more substantial than air.

While this did not take long it was too late when finished, and the men too weary, to break camp; but the next morning saw the chuck wagon piled high with barrels and caldrons on the way to the ranch house. Some of the extra men, having in mind the wording of the guarantee of a full month's pay, cherished the hope that there was no further use for their services and that they would be paid off and told to leave. They were disappointed, for instead of loafing or leaving, half of them were set to planting posts for the fence which it was found necessary to erect along the creek, while the others rode over the range on the look-out for cows with signs of itch. A small herd of about a hundred, found scattered along and near the creek, were dipped as a precautionary measure, and after a week had elapsed without finding further signs of the disease, Buck ordered the second squad to begin the Spring or calf round-up; the fence division patrolled the creek to effect a quarantine until the wire arrived. They had a two-strand fence extending along Blackfoot Creek from its source to the river, when the round-up was half over, and were immediately put to work with the others. When the last calf was branded, the extra force was let go and Buck waited for some new deviltry. It came, and turned his hair grayer and deepened the lines of care on his face. Calves had totalled up well and proved to him that there was lots of money to be taken out of the Double Y under fair conditions, but the next blow cut into his resources with crushing effect and made him waver for a moment.