CHAPTER XII

THE COW HUNTERS

AT midnight the tired herd, after the strange fashion of cattle, rose almost as with one impulse and began slightly to straggle before lying down on the other side. The four men then on the watch, slowly riding two in each direction of the round of the massed cattle, did not redouble their monotonous crooning—time out of mind a range custom in handling cows—but kept their spaces, knowing the herd would soon again resume its rest. No unusual sight or sound alarmed them. As Len Hersey said to Del Williams, they handled sweet so far. The last watch saw the herd rise for the morning, not yet beginning to feed, standing, stretching. The cook began duties of the day, grumbling to himself.

By now, without a word, the wrinkled Anita was gathering bits of fuel, starting a tiny practicable blaze, and groans could be heard from black Milly, still in her cart, complaining of her misery. Frugal, but better than the fare of these others who now moved here and there between the tent and the massed brown blur of the herd, was the breakfast for the owner of Del Sol.

The sun still was young when Nabours, moody, morose, finished his snatched breakfast, got into saddle and resumed his lead. Len Hersey was moved up to the left point now. He and Del Williams dribbled the thin forward edge of the loosely grazing cattle into line. Without crowding, stopping, grazing, advancing, the cattle again began to trail.

No man mentioned the incidents of the night before.

“Roll erlong, little dogies! Roll erlong!” intoned light-hearted Len. “I don’t give a damn where we’re goin’, but we’re a-travelin’!

“Say, Del,” he resumed, “did you see that night kid when he fotch in the remuder this mornin’? He ain’t got no coat, no slicker, and on’y one shirt, and his pants is right wore out now. He was shiverin’ like a monkey in a rain.”

“Did he holler?” asked Del.

“No, not oncet. And he lay his string on a new horse and when he clim him the damn bronc he begin high, wide and lonesome. But the kid sets him. ‘I allus take a pitcher fust off, cool mornin’s,’ says he, ‘along of it’s bein’ so warmin’.’”

“Sinker’ll make a cow hand,” rejoined his companion. “He ain’t no bigger fool than the rest of us.”

Back on the line of the great herd the swing men were edging the cattle in. At the rear the two unhappy drags were again in argument with the cook. With the latter, old Sanchez agreed every new calf should be shot and abandoned. Cal Taney opposed this.

“’Tain’t fer you, boy, to say what you’ll do er won’t do. None o’ yore difference ef we pile calfs on yore damn kyart tell their airs sweep the groun’. I reckon afore us all gits to Aberlene we’ll have morn’n four thousand newborned calfs—straight hundred per cent. An’ ever’ one o’ ’em is a-goin’ to ride under or on top o’ yore ole kyart. You better engage in prayer, nigger.”

It was again high and hot noon. The herd had fed and walked a half-dozen miles, and now some had lain down in the shade of a live-oak fringe. Nabours, scouting ahead, for an instant paused. Turning, he came back at speed to his point men.

“Throw ’em off!” he called. “Hold ’em on this flat! There’s a big herd ahead coming down from the west. We don’t want to get mixed in.”

“Who is it?” demanded Del Williams. “Somebody ahead of us, going north?”

“Kin savvy. No wagon in sight, and a right loose drive. I’ll go back.”

He met the leader of the new herd, who was riding to meet him; a tall, loose-clad man of aquiline features. He was perhaps thirty-six years of age, and of a certain gay assurance, as his laughing eye declared. His beard, pointing down to his breast, was dark and glossy. Even in his rags he did not lack in jauntiness.

“How, _amigo_!” Nabours pulled up.

“_Caballero!_” rejoined the other, grinning and extending a brown and sinewy hand. “My name’s Dalhart, from Uvalde. Which way?”

“North,” said Nabours; and no more.

“You got a trail herd?”

“_Si, Señor._ Fustest and damnedest ever went out o’ Caldwell.”

“What’s your brand?”

“T.L.—we’re Del Sol people; old Colonel Lockhart.”

“Shore, I know you! Well, you’ll want to cut our herd, for we got plenty o’ yore cows.”

“So?”

“_Si, Señor._ You see, we’re a cow-huntin’ outfit—on spec. We been out around seven months. Started at the Nueces Cañon and worked north and west clean almost into the Staked Plains. We cleared the Concho and was over almost fur as the Pecos. We sold some cows in yore brand to a outfit going to Sumner, and ’ll account fer them on our tally—less, say a dollar a head for findin’. What they was doin’ clean over in west away from home and off their range you’ll have to say, fer I don’t know. What we got now in the T. L. we picked up mostly on the Double Mountain Fork. You know as well as me they don’t belong in there, and how they got there is something I kain’t figure. But we shore got three-four hundred o’ T.L. fours.”

“I need ’em,” said Nabours.

“There’s others from even as fur north as Palo Pinto. All north and west o’ where they belong at. What pushed ’em west?”

“Friend,” said Jim Nabours, “you’re a cowman. The truth is, Del Sol, and maybe more, has been reg’lar skinned for two years. The push has been up and west, toward the Llano. There’s been a big steal going on. It looks like some big fellers was planning to stock that open range as soon as the Comanches is got out of there.”

“How you figger that? And which way you headed now yoreself?”

“You ever heard of Aberlene?”

“No; what is it?”

“It’s the head of the railroad. A three-dollar steer here is wuth five-ten-fifteen-eighteen dollars up yon—we don’t know how much. The news has just came down. I’m trying to drive up the last leavings of our cows—Miss Taisie Lockhart’s cows, to make a little stake for her. We’ve been skinned by the gang at Austin ever sence the war. What we know we can’t always prove. I’m talking to a cowman. . . . How many men is in yore outfit?” he concluded.

“Only six of us. We got pack horses, travel light. But of all the antigodlin’ bunches o’ cows off their range—I couldn’t tell you how many!

“You see, us fellers don’t skin or drive to the coast canneries. We just turn in any brands we get, and folks usual pays us a dollar a head—er promises to. I reckon we’ve picked up two-three thousand head. Lots get loose in the thickets; we ain’t strong enough to hold ’em.

“And so you’re drivin’ for Miss Taisie Lockhart? I’ve heard of her, clean down home. Orphant, huh?”

Nabours nodded.

“Yes; and the damnedest whitest, squarest, worst-robbed orphant in Texas. I’m shamed to show my herd to a cowman, fer it’s the sorriest I ever seen. Now, I want them fours, all you can spare of ’em. I’ll trade you in cows just come in with calfs; I can’t get them on north. Seems to me like a million cows, now, every one of ’em, he taken this perticler time fer to bring a nice spotted calf inter the world when he ain’t wanted.”

Dalhart, the cow hunter, hooked a leg around his saddle horn, and Nabours went on:

“You take them cows, and calfs, right now, and throw ’en back on Del Sol, just below, and I’ll take what fours and long threes you can spare. When we get back next fall, ef we ever do, I’ll set ’em in yore brand or vent ’em to any one you say, and I’ll credit you fifty cents on each trade inside our own brand, or a dollar if you’d rather have cash then. I’m playing her wide open. Ef we bust on this drive anybody can have Del Sol—corral, house, cows, calfs and all. I just don’t want to be bothered with fresh she-stuff right now, that’s all. As for money—friend, we ain’t got none.”

“Nor nobody.”

“You know you said it! That’s why this Del Sol herd’s important. We allow to bring back money. We’ll settle then, and pay you a dollar a head fer fours, damn glad, fer they was lost off the earth so fur as we all was concerned. Well, you boys done swung over the whole north and west of Texas? That’s the biggest rodeo on spec I ever hearn.”

“Not so much money,” said the other. “We started twelve strong, all good men. One was killed by a horse. Four was killed by Comanches. It was one fight after another on the old Comanche road. We could only bring through the leavin’s, too, like yourself.

“Now, what you say is fair. We’ll throw your she-stuff back fer you—hit ain’t fur and they’ll go back easy. Take what T.L. stuff we got rounded up—and anything else you like. Comes to a orphant, no cowman in Texas is going to ast to look at yore herd.”

“One bunch has,” said Nabours. “Some day I got one or two scores to settle. But till I get back from Aberlene on the railroad, I got neither time ner money. Mr. Dalhart, our outfit’s broke! We’re eating borrowed corn meal and hog meat, and borrowed where I wish to God it wasn’t. Our remuda ain’t all our own. And as fer our brand, I’ll bet you, outside the Fishhook road brand, there ain’t hardly ary two head alike. I been liberal. Please, sir, don’t comb our herd, because it’ll make you dizzy. She’s a orphant.”

Dalhart nodded.

“I know. No man shall ride into yore herd, least of all us. Take what you want out of our stray rodeo. Ef you get back, settle with us fellers any way you like. Down in Uvalde we know of Taisie Lockhart. Ain’t a Texan but says hit’s a damn shame the way her father was a-sassinated. Since the war, there ain’t no law and no jestice in all Texas no more. Hit’s eena’most each fer hisself, and no pay fer nothing. But orphants!”

“And like her!” said Jim Nabours.

“Is she perty as she’s said fer to be?” smiled Dalhart.

“More! Come and see!”

“How?”

“She’s three miles below, in our outfit.”

“You’re not lettin’ her go up the trail!”

“Where else’d she go? She’s broke, and a reg’lar organized gang working out her last head! What elset could she do? Come back. We’ll talk things over.”

When they sighted the scattered Del Sol herd, its riders sitting loose, some of the men asleep in the saddle, the little pair of white carts made first objective for Nabours and his new-found friend.

The latter was not prepared for the vision of the tall young girl who rode out to meet them. Somber of eye, grave, sad, Anastasie Lockhart could no more deny her youth, her beauty, her heredity, her education, than she could negate the strong round figure, the clear skin and the mass of ruddy hair which first impressed this observer, not easily abashed, who now cast down his bridle rein and advanced on foot to meet her, broken hat in hand.

“Miss Lockhart, this is Mr. Dalhart, of Uvalde,” began Nabours. “He’s just above, with a rodeo of mixed stuff. He’s been on a cow hunt. He’s done found cows. I was purposing a few things. We come down to talk it over.”

Taisie Lockhart held out her hand in shy, stiff fashion that little comported with her inches or her masculine garb.

“I’m shore pleased to meet you, Miss Lockhart,” said the newcomer. He stood, a wild but not uncouth figure, a typical border man of that fierce and self-reliant land. “We have heard of Miss Lockhart as fur south as Uvalde,” he added.

When Taisie smiled, a small dimple, very feminine, quite often appeared on her left cheek. This now unsettled Dalhart’s reason utterly.

Nabours now briefly outlined the proposition of trading cows for beeves and making the herd more suitable for the trail. Taisie Lockhart nodded soberly, by no means ignorant of cows and cow methods.

“But now,” broke in Nabours presently, “Miss Taisie, I’ll have to get a new hand somehow, out of Mr. Dalhart’s outfit.”

“Yes? We—we lost one, sir.” Taisie’s voice was unsteady.

The cow hunter was, so it seemed, a simple man of direct habits.

“I rid down, Miss Lockhart,” said he, “to ast fer the job. Would ye take me? I kin ride and rope.”

His eyes, brown, direct, unabashed, looked fair and square into the dark eyes of Taisie Lockhart. She spread out her hands at length, with words of assent which might have had a double meaning:

“One more man? Very well.”