CHAPTER VI.

THE RANCH ON THE TROUBLESOME.

It was pitch dark when Jack rode into the corral at the ranch on the Troublesome. After unpacking and storing his trappings he went over to the ranch house. Several Ute ponies were in the corral. Their presence puzzled him, and as he entered the log house what was his surprise to find himself in the presence of Colorow, Bennett and Antelope. Old Tracy, the owner of the ranch, greeted the newcomer with a merry "How--how--well, beat my brains out with a straw ef I tho't of a-seeing you afore spring."

Bill, the fiery red-whiskered, red-haired, red-faced, stuttering Irishman, ejaculated, after a good deal of effort, "D--d--d--durn my p--p--p--pictures! G--g--g--glad t--t--t--to see yer." The obese, low-browed renegade Colorow looked inquiringly. So did the other Indians as Jack replied to both ranchmen:

"I left Rock Creek yesterday morning and crossed the Gore range today. The snow was pretty deep in spots."

Colorow's eyes glittered as it dawned on him that the white man Jack of Rock Creek and this man were one and the same. Jack did not know any of the trio except Bennett, neither of the others having openly visited the camp below. As Bennett rose up from the floor with a greeting he turned and waved his hand:

"This Antelope, this Colorow."

Jack involuntarily stepped back a pace, halfway starting his hand as if to grasp his six-shooter. Colorow saw the motion as well as the swift, penetrating flash that shot from Jack's gray eyes into the very soul of the old red devil. But the warrior never made a hostile movement. The least perceptible smile crept into his face as he interpreted the telegraphic glance. He realized that Jack guessed for a certainty what Bennett and Antelope might guess, for Colorow had never told any of the Utes that he actually followed Jack, nor that he waited in vain at the mouth of the long gulch for that worthy young man to walk to his death. It was with mock cordiality that the two men acknowledged each other's presence, but not so with Antelope, who rose and grasped Jack's outstretched hand. Antelope and Bennett _did_ guess right. The ranchmen had seen the little exchange of "symptoms" and were at loss to understand the purport thereof. Nevertheless, they had in an instant, yet seemingly in a careless manner, lessened the distance between the right hand and the butt end of their respective six-shooters, for the frontiersman is keen to scent danger. Colorow remained in his chair and thus addressed Jack:

"Sabe white man Rock Creek trail?"

Jack nodded in reply.

"Sabe camp where Utes sleep?"

Jack nodded again, holding up two fingers, signifying he had seen both camping places, as the Utes had not made as rapid progress as he.

"Colorow lose twelve ponies," counting them by holding up both hands, then two additional fingers. "Mebbe so white man see 'em ponies?"

Jack shook his head. The ponies had become hungry, broken away and probably were hunting buffalo grass in the lower hills when he was crossing the higher slopes of the Gore range. A few questions as to the camp on Rock Creek, what disposition he had made of the camp property and furs, and then the Indians drew their blankets about themselves and silently filed away to the corral, where they mounted their ponies and set out for their own camp in the willows, some half mile distant. After they had departed Tracy said with a quizzical look:

"That old devil is up to mischief," meaning Colorow. He turned to Jack, continuing, "Tho't mebbe so yer were goin' to plunk him fer a minnit thar."

Bill chimed in: "I seen the f--f--f--fire in yer eyes and says to myself, it's all over with Cu--cu--col--col--Colorow at last, b--b--b--but why in h--h--h--hellen d--d--d--didn't yer shoot?"

"Well," said Jack, just the least regretting he had not, "I didn't know how much of a 'stink' it would raise. The Utes are getting pretty bad, and the whole parcel of them might take a notion to come up here and clean out the Park before the soldiers could stop them."

"What d' yer mean?" anxiously asked both his listeners, with a perceptible blanching of their bronzed faces.

"Old Yamanatz tells me things aren't going just right at the agency. Colorow and Douglas' band of renegade Utes were camped outside the reservation, two miles from the cabin where the trapper and I put up. Didn't the trapper tell you anything?" suddenly asked Jack.

The ranchmen looked curiously at one another, and Tracy evasively remarked, "Well, he didn't say much; just said he got lonesome and had left the old woman without any wood an' allowed he'd cut some for her, then he'd go back byme-by."

"Yes, byme-by," scornfully broke in Jack, adding, with some feeling, "Between me and the corral that trapper is afraid of the Utes and left me in the lurch."

Tracy and Bill exchanged glances, as much as to say, "The tenderfoot has got his eye-teeth cut all right." Bill spoke up as if a sudden impulse had made him forget the dangers that lurked in the Ute question.

"How about that redskin g--g--gal? Tho't mebbe so y--y--yer hed jined in holy wedlock into the Ute family," at which both the ranchmen slapped their hands together and laughed uproariously. Jack joined in with them, for he appreciated the gossip of ranch life, and no sewing bee ever furnished better "stamping ground" for wagging tongues than the frontier masculine brand.

Bill set about getting something to eat, and Jack had a double-barreled appetite stowed away under his belt. The table, with its marble oilcloth, real stone china plates, cups, saucers, glass vinegar cruets and a molasses jug, was soon loaded with a big platter of venison, a plate of hot biscuits, a pot of coffee, a pitcher of rich cream and a crock of yellow butter. It was nearly three months since Jack had put his legs under any kind of a table or seen anything the color of butter or cream, and it was a treat that could not have been equaled in Delmonico's to draw up to that feast with those truly honest brothers of wild civilization, partake of their hospitality and listen to their straightforward talk, rich in its omission of studied rhetoric or ponderous grammatical phrases; no fear of using the wrong spoon or creating a social riot by helping one's self to a little venison gravy, even sopping the bread in the platter. Etiquette, frills and napkins had to give way to blunt speech, solid, wholesome food and a red bandanna. Back of it all, too, was his famous digestion and ravenous appetite, essential elements that have no co-existence with spike-tailed coats, trained gowns, "eye-openers" and "night caps." Jack had been busy, but he slowed down long enough to let out his belt one hole. Bill had entertained in the conversation direction.

"Say, yer know when yer shot the antelope and Irish Mike got sore at it because he missed the whole bunch? Well, old man Snyder come in with his team last October after a load of fish, and we got up the old raft and dropped the net into the bend of the river right there and dragged out over a thousand fine suckers at one haul. We threw back all under two pounds and a half."

Jack broke in with the remark, "Those red-finned suckers are most as good as trout."

"Yer bet yer life they are," chimed in Tracy.

"Well," continued Bill, "the old man and his boy was a watchin' us from the other bank, so we hed to be sort o' careful as we picked them fish over, but there was five as pretty red-throated trout clum up my coat sleeve as ever yer laid eyes on; two of 'em tipped the scales at five pounds apiece. We had trout to eat fer a week. Gosh all humlock, but it was cold work gettin' them suckers ready. We worked 'til most midnight. They cleaned up about six hundred dollars on the load. Sold 'em in Georgetown, Central City, Idaho Springs--yes, sir, clean down to Golden. The first of 'em brought forty cents a pound in the big camps, but the last end of 'em went fer a nickel apiece. Down at McQueery's they got another load for some other chaps a month after; pulled in over seventeen hundred fish at one clip, but them fellers didn't know how to peddle them out and lost money by shippin' 'em to Denver."

"How's the stock, Tracy?" inquired Jack.

"Doin' tiptop; we've got about one hundred and twenty head of horses winterin' now. Mike brought in a lot of forty soon after you went down trappin'. I keep a good watch on them haystacks this year to see that the snowflakes don't strike fire again. They burned up a couple years ago when I hed thirty ton of as fine hay as they ever get in this yere Park. I had all the stock that was bein' wintered, and some of the other fellows up the river had hay but no stock. The range had closed, so they had no chans't to get any stock. Well, my hay ketched fire and, of course, I wouldn't see them horses starve, so I had to buy them fellers' hay. A good ba'r trap would have ketched something besides ba'r that winter if I had set a few out. While I'm tendin' to the corral Bill will tell you about that hole in the door frame," pointing to a badly mangled orifice about as big as an orange.

"Shotgun?" queried Jack.

"Yes," said Bill; "shotgun--kingdom cum," and he had to straighten out his vocal impediments and tell it slowly, although it was a hard task for him, and his red whiskers and hair would rise up in their wrath, seemingly, as he stuttered along:

"Yer see, Dick Bradner came along one day over from Rattlesnake, and said he wanted a good jack-rabbit shoot. The snow was just right and he was gone all afternoon. He got half a wagonload, I guess. Along about dark he steps in on the way to the corral and sets his gun up aside the fireplace with the other guns. I was just beginning to get grub and had a pan of flour mixin' up some sour-dough bread, the lamp standin' in front of the pan and me at the other end of the table from the door frame. I was puttin' in some good licks on that bread, for sour dough needs a lot of punchin', and guess I had my head leanin' out pretty well toward the door. I heard some one step in from the outside, but didn't look up to see who it was, when there came a flash, and kingdom cum, I thought my head had caved in. The splinters flew into the bread and the powder smoke choked me clean up. All I could see was that crazy fool Irish Mike, his face as white as it will be when he's gone over the range, standin' there with Dick's gun pintin' to the roof. That idjit never sees a new gun standin' round but he must pull it up and aim it at somethin'. You know how he shoots. Dick must have left the gun at full cock, as he allus does. It was lucky it went off before he got the barrel on a level with the lamp, or we'd all been in kingdom cum."

"You got some of the powder in your face," remarked Jack, noticing the blue pits sprinkled here and there in Bill's forehead.

"Yes," said Bill, energetically, with several powder-burned adjectives; "he leaves his mark everywhere he goes. Pity the foolkiller don't git him."

Tracy had joined the party again just in time to hear Bill's bouquet of choice epithets.

"Tain't so much coz he means to do anything harmin', but the big brute is so allfired strong and clumsy that when he sets out to do anything he busts everything he teches. Why, he went to pitchin' hay off the far stack and must have thought the fork handle would hold up the whole five ton, fer he snapped it like a ginger cake just outen the oven. Then he was helpin' put up logs on the barn. We had the top logs most up on the skids when she fotched up again' the cross log that the skid was leanin' again'. He reaches the ax up and sets the blade under the log and pulls on the handle, and away went my dollar-and-a-half handle. He broke it square off. Took me nigh onto a week to dress another out. But he's a good worker. All he needs is a sledge and a big enough drill so he won't miss the head on't and he can pound that 'til jedgment day if the feller turnin' the drill keeps a good lookout for his hand from bein' hit when the Irishman misses the drill."

"I see he left his rifle," remarked Jack.

"Yes; said he didn't want it at the mines, an' he allows he'll come back afore the range opens to pick out a hundred and sixty acres somewhere in the Park. Likely as not he'll see you in Georgetown, but yer got some snow climbin' to do. Thar ain't many goin' out now, and I heerd Bill Redmon say he'd have to use 'skis' pretty soon and drag the mail on a sled. When yer goin' out?"

Jack thought a minute or two and then replied:

"I guess I can make it day after tomorrow. That will be the 17th of January, and I guess 'Red' will bring the pony back and you can feed both of them for me. By the way, I guess I'll have to snowshoe it in about beaver-trappin' time. I've got a little business myself down near the agency."

Tracy and Bill eyed each other quizzically and tried to guess the mission, but Jack gave them no satisfaction.

"I'll be back here by the middle of April, if not before. Beaver begin to chew the trees down in early March, don't they?"

"Yes," said Tracy; "but it gets lonesome as all git out before Aprile. If yer comin' in that soon, why in Christmas don't yer stay now? We've got grub enough and we can go back in the timber, mebbe so, and ketch a grizzly or cinnamon about six weeks from now."

"No; can't do it. Got to go back to the States and attend to some business, sure. You can have all the grizzlies that are loose. By the way, you got that silver tip since I left."

Jack was admiring a fine skin that was nailed up on the inside of the cabin, taking up the greater portion of a wall ten feet long and eight feet high.

"We got that out on the Blue about four weeks ago. I shot him eleven times afore he quit bein' sassy," said Tracy, with little or no concern, as if killing a grizzly was on a par with breaking a broncho. "I'll get twenty-five dollars for that pelt in the summer if I take it to Denver."

With the dishes cleared away and everything in readiness for the night, Jack, Tracy and Bill sat around the fireplace smoking their pipes. The pine knots sputtered and glistened with deep, red-inflamed eyes as Jack told of the Rock Creek pow-wows.

"You see, old man Meeker has been trying to teach the Utes how to plow, how to subtract and divide and to carry wood, while the squaws crochet, hemstitch and make sofa pillows."

"Yes, I see them redskin devils tote firewood," broke in Tracy. "If there's anything an Indian despises it's work. They won't even walk when the snow is belly deep. I've seen six of 'em on one little cayuse wallerin' through big drifts at timber line. Why, durn their pictures, a Ute won't cook if he can beg a bite anywhere, let alone plow, and he'll freeze to death afore gettin' wood for a fire if thar's a squaw within a mile to git it fur him. The trapper told us you would git yer fill of Injuns."

Bill crossed his legs and then uncrossed them again, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and his neck began to swell. He wanted to say something right bad. Pulling a string off his buckskin pants leg, he commenced tying it into knots, nervously fingering the ends.

"Them gol durned skule teachers is all right back in the old red skule-house in--in Missouri," he said, "but kingdom cum, when they try to make them blanket Injuns plow it's time fur white folks in Middle Park to put up a stockade and lay in lots of 45-90's for Sharp's old reliable, and a dozen or two Colts' frontier sixes. Them's my sentiments, and don't yer ferget it."

"Bill hit the nail on the head," echoed Tracy.

Jack was studying the red, gleaming eyes of the pine knots, and the moccasin prints in the snow on the high divide seemed to gather again in the ashes. He started suddenly, as if an inspiration struck him.

"Boys, it will come to it. That bunch down in the willows have been off the reservation a long time. Meeker can't get them back without a regiment of soldiers, and he hasn't got along that far yet. Susan is the 'woman in the case,' and she's putting the young bucks into a trance about encroaching white folks, while the old fighters, like Colorow and Douglas, sneak up behind and pat her on the back. Ignacio, Yamanatz--not even old Ouray--can stop them if they once get a supply of powder and lead. Wait until the next annuities are paid in and Uncle Sam will have to send a burying squad over there. They will not do anything for some time; they haven't any meat, no bullets to kill deer with, not even salt." Jack stopped for a breath and Tracy took up the conversation.

"I seen yer was good and strong agin' Colorow when yer found out he was here, but I didn't know it was that bad. 'Peers to me yer must have had a grudge agin' him wuss'n yer hev let on."

"Yes," echoed Bill, "s--s--sumthin' must a s--s--set yer afire down below."

"Well, Bill and Tracy, that old scalp-lifter followed me like a shadow for two days, ready at any moment, if chance presented, to plant the steel in a spot where it would take, as they say when you are vaccinated."

The frontiersmen both jumped to their feet with one impulse to get hold of their "Sharps," as if to use them at once. Thus does habit breed in that rugged life. Then they sat down and listened to the rest of the story wherein Jack told of Yamanatz's warnings, of young Colorow's early mission to see if white man Jack was in his camp. But he left the most interesting story until the last, then mentioned no names, "And who do you suppose followed Colorow to see that no harm came to me?"

Bill and Tracy guessed every Ute in the White River Reservation. Finally Jack said:

"The only one that Susan fears."

"Chiquita!" exclaimed Bill and Tracy, in one voice.

"The same," said Jack.

"Holy smoke! Kingdum cum!"

"Yes, the fairest Indian girl that ever drew breath."

"Or ever strung a bow," chimed Bill.

"Or beaded a moccasin," said Tracy.