CHAPTER XLII

TWENTY STRAIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE

THE great herd, scattered over a mile of grazing ground, by now was well quieted. Wearied by their own exertions, some of the animals were lying down, as though aware that the end of their journey was at hand; the remainder scattered, grazing contentedly. Men were on guard here and there at the edges of the herd; others were at the fire, eating. A sudden excitement arose among the cow hands when word passed that a buyer was on the scene, for so they interpreted the advent of Nabours and his companions. Nabours waved a hand with genuine cowman enthusiasm.

“Look at them!” he exclaimed. “Did you ever see a finer outfit of cows in your borned days, Mr. Pattison?”

The face of the trader remained expressionless, though his eyes were busy as he rode.

“You’ve got some she-stock in here,” said he at length; “some yearlings in too. I should say, too, that you’ve got several sorts of brands.”

“Well, maybe we have,” said Nabours. “I’d have a damned sight more if we had not hit so much country where there wasn’t no cows coming north. This here herd belongs to a orphant, Mr. Pattison, and in our country they ain’t no questions asked about orphants; the law of brands don’t run on orphants. We put up this herd in our own country. Our road brand is a Fishhook, and when you buy a Fishhook steer you are buying our support of the brand—twenty good men that can shoot. I got to sell these cows straight too.”

Pattison reined up, still dubious.

“Let me tell you something. I know beef—that’s my trade. You’ve got maybe three or four hundred of light stuff and shes. They don’t pack well. Still, here I am with a good ranch over on the Smoky Hill. It hasn’t got a head of stock on it yet.

“I just took in the land and water and trusted to God for the cattle. I know where the real money is, and it isn’t in buying lean fours. If I had any way to handle these stockers over on my ranch I’d take your herd straight.”

“I can’t split no cows,” said Jim Nabours. “It’s all or none. I got to sell all these cows afore dark. We both allowed that five minutes was plenty.”

“Well, it is,” said Pattison quietly. “I trade as quick as anybody, and I don’t go to the saloon first, as two or three other men have, whom I happen to know, that came on that train. Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do: If you’ll hold out that stuff below the fours I’ll give you twenty straight for your fours, right here on the prairie. Five thousand cash down, balance in draft on the First National of Kansas City.”

Suddenly Dan McMasters turned to Nabours.

“The herd is sold,” said he. “Twenty a head, straight through.”

“How do you mean, Dan?”

“I am taking all the she-stuff and stackers for myself. Let Mr. Pattison have the fours.”

“But what’re you going to do?”

“I am thinking of starting a Northern ranch for myself. It don’t take me long to decide either. I believe Mr. Pattison is right. There’s where the money is. Besides, I’m leaving Texas before long.”

Pattison turned toward him with his quizzical smile, estimating him after his own fashion.

“You bid me up, young man,” said he; “but you’ve sold this herd, yearlings and all, at twenty straight on the prairie.

“Now, we’ve got plenty time left—two minutes by the watch. I’ll give you just a minute and a half to think of me as your partner in my ranch on the Smoky Hill, myself to own half this stuff you’ve just bought in, you to trail a fresh herd up to us next year and to run this upper ranch for me—all dependent on your investigation of me back East, preferably by telegraph to-night. I’ve got the land, you’ve got the cows.

“I’ll show you how to get three-four-five cents a pound for beef on the hoof. What do you say?”

McMasters turned his own cool gray eyes upon the other, regarding him with a like smile as their eyes met, and their hands.

“We have traded,” said he quietly.

Nabours looked from one to the other, scratching his head.

“Then is my cows sold?” he demanded. “Do we get twenty straight?”

“You heard us,” said Pattison. “There is a new company on the new northern range—the PM brand. Mr. McMasters is my partner; you see, I know something about him already. And I want to say to you, sir, you are on the road to more money than you could ever make in Texas. We’ll cut this stuff and tally out to-morrow if it pleases you. Come on over to the fire, partner; let’s light down.”

Each in his mood, Nabours somewhat chastened as he endeavored to figure out how much the five minutes’ work had meant to him, they moved to where the giant cart of Buck the cook loomed on the level prairie. Pattison reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out a great package of folded bills, which he tossed on the ground before him as he reached for his coffee cup.

“I think that’s five thousand dollars,” said he. “I can’t carry much cash with me, of course. In town, I’ll give you a draft on the First National of Kansas City for fifty-five thousand more if the herd tallies out three thousand head. I am almost ready to take your own tally.”

“No,” said Jim Nabours, “we haven’t tallied out since the last run; I been scared to. If we hadn’t had no bad luck down the trail there wouldn’t ’a’ been money enough in Kansas City to buy all them cows we started with. Do you mean to say to me that you’re going to give me sixty thousand dollars for them cows?”

“I certainly am if you don’t object too much about it. And I call this a good day’s work. I have bought the first northern-trail herd. Besides, I have got a partner and a manager for my ranch, and a line of supply for the ranch, too. Yes, I call it a good five minutes’ work.

“You shall have all the time you want to put up your half for these stockers, Mr. McMasters,” he added.

“I don’t want any time,” replied Dan McMasters. “I can raise a little money. You see, I know the history of this herd. I’d almost have been ready to buy it straight through at twenty a head myself.”

“I was afraid you would,” said Pattison. “But I wanted the cows and a partner too. All right, take your pleasure as to your half of the northern ranch ante. I tell you, I am going to make you more money than either of us ever made in our lives. Lord, this is just the beginning of things! What a fine world it is out here!”

He turned to the others as he went on, tin cup of coffee in hand.

“You see, I am banking on two things that you Texas men didn’t know anything about. One is the stockyards at Kansas City. The other is a packing business in Kansas City. There’s going to be the market for this range stuff. Meantime I’ll have to get some of your boys to drive these fours over to Junction City for me. I’ll buy all your ponies except what you need to get back home. My partner and I will need some horses for the PM outfit on the Smoky Hill.

“Oh, I don’t blame you for not seeing the game very far ahead up here,” he went on. “This is a colder country than you are used to. But if I can hire some of your men to run the herd for us, they can build dugouts in a few days like those you saw in town, and hole up warm and snug for the winter. After a while you’ll begin to make hay, but you’ll need a whole lot less than you think right now.

“We are going to start the first winter ranch on the heels of the first herd north of thirty-six. I am going to show you that cows will do a heap better when you fatten them north of the edge of winter and north of the tick line.

“Is our five minutes up? I don’t like to waste time here. Let’s go back to town.”

“When do we deliver, then?” asked Nabours.

“You’ve sold and delivered right now and right here, on the prairie,” replied Pattison. “I am hiring all the men that will go in with Mr. McMasters and me; we’d like at least six or eight. Mr. McMasters will come out to help tally to-morrow if that suits you. I never knew a Texas cowman to falsify a count, and I never knew one that didn’t go broke trying to pack his own cattle. It takes big men to do big business, and you will have to pardon me if I say it never was in the cards to pack cattle in Texas, by Texas or for Texas. The South needs the North in this thing. It’s going to take both the North and the South to make this country out here.” He swept a wide arm. “The West! Oh, by golly!”

* * * * *

“Well,” sighed Jim Nabours, still unable to credit his sudden good fortune, “my boss is the richest girl in Texas right now, if she was in Texas. I’ll have to admit she owes part to a damn Yankee, same as part to us Texans.”

He turned earnestly to the Northern trader.

“You’ve got to see our boss when you get in town,” said he. “You’ll be glad to see where all your money went to. She shore is prettier than a spotted pup.”

“Well, let’s ride,” laughed Pattison. “We’ll have a look at Abilene and the Texas orphan.”

“On our way!” said Nabours, and they mounted. Nabours rode off to accost one of his men. “We’ve sold the herd, Len,” said he. “I’ll pay off to-morrow in town. All you fellows that wants to hire out to these folks can do it. You split the men to-night, Len, and half of you come to town if you feel like it.

“Oh, yes,” he added, turning, as he started off, “I forgot to tell you. I forgot to tell you that Cal Dalhart got killed in town a little while ago. I heard it just when I left. Del Williams done shot him, looks like.”

“The hell he did!” remarked Hersey. “Well, it was plain enough the last three months they had it in for each other—both allowing to marry Miss Taisie.”

“And now they won’t neither of them will,” nodded Nabours. “Ain’t it hell how men fuss over a woman? Now Del’s gone somewheres. Both good cow hands as ever rid. That’s the fourth man I’ve lost since we left home, not mentioning several hundred cows. I’m the onluckiest man in the world.

“Yet,” he went on as he joined McMasters and Pattison, addressing the former, “I call this a good day’s work. We’ve brung our brand through, and we’ve done sold her out. I reckon Mr. Sim Rudabaugh has played in hard luck. He didn’t keep us out of Aberlene, now did he?”

“He did his best,” replied Dan McMasters. “He got here just a little too late. He came to town on the train just a little while ago. There are two or three of his men here already, maybe more.”

Nabours looked at him narrowly, suddenly serious.

“Some of us boys’ll be in town to-night,” said he.

As they rode by the jumbled heap of the camp-cart goods a very exact observer might have noted that the pair of wide horns carefully cherished by Len Hersey had disappeared since the first passing of the group from town. No one had particularly noticed Len as he rode up near the cart with a stubborn little yearling dogy on his rope; it was thought the cook had requisitioned beef. But now, as the party turned to leave the herd, the keen eye of Pattison caught sight of an astonishing creature, scarce larger than a calf, but bearing so enormous a spread of horns as would have graced any immemorial steer of the Rio Grande.

“My Lord!” he exclaimed. “What on earth is that? Is that the way cattle grow down in your country?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Len gravely, still holding the animal on his reata. “He’s a nice little yearling. Give him time, an’ he’ll raise right smart o’ horn. O’ course, he’s still young. Texas, she sort of runs to horn, in some spots, special seems like.”

“Spots? Spots? What spots?” demanded Pattison. “Where’d that critter come from?”

“He come from our range, sir,” replied Len. “He range over with a bunch near the Laguna Del Sol. They all watered in there, at the Laguna. Near’s we could tell there must be something in the water in the Laguna sort of makes the cows in there run to horn, like.”

“Well, I should say so! But still, you can’t make me believe that any steer less than a four could ever grow horns like that.”

“Oh, yes, they kin,” rejoined this artless child of the range. “My pap used to drive down to Rockport, on the coast—I’ve helped drive south, to ship cows on the Plant steamers. I reckon they was going to Cuby. We had to rope every steer and throw him down and take a ax and chop off his horns, they was so wide. That was to give more room on the boats. Some steers didn’t like to have their horns chopped off thataway. Well, here we got plenty of room for horns anyhow.” He swept an arm over the field of waving grass reaching on to the blue horizon. “Give me three years more on this dogy and I promise you he’ll have horns.

“Speaking of horns, Jim,” he resumed; “oncet when we were driving in a coast drive we turned in a lot of dogies, of course claimin’ a cow was a cow, an’ nache’l, four years old even if it was only a yearling. Well, the damn Yankee who was buying our cows he kicked on so many dogies. Of course, none of us fellers’d ever heard of a thing like that; a buyer allus taken the run o’ the delivery, head for head. Says he, ‘I ain’t buyin’ yearlin’s, I’m buyin’ fours.’

“Well, we driv in another dogy right then, one of them Lagunies, an’ he had horns big as this one here. The damn little fool he put on more airs than any Uvalde mossy horn about his headworks. It was just like he said, ‘Look at me! I done riz these here horns in one year, where it taken you maybe a hunderd.’ Cows was their pride, mister, same as us. Uh-huh.

“But do you believe me? That damn Yankee wouldn’t take my word that the horns of them Lagunies gets their growth early sometimes. I says, ‘Mister, I’ll bet you a hunderd dollars that’s a four.’ ‘Well, maybe it is,’ says he. He scratch his haid. But he couldn’t git over it. When we come to load in at the boat he says, ‘Well I be damned ef that ain’t the littlest cow I ever seen fer a four.’ I was sort o’ hot by then, and I says, ‘Boss, you’re right—that ain’t a four, it’s a yearlin’.’

“Well, then he swung around the other way. Says he, ‘It kain’t noways be a yearlin’, not with them horns. I bought too many cows not to know that much. It don’t stand to reason that no yearlin’ can raise no horns more’n five foot acrost.’ You see, mister, that yearlin’ was carryin’ horns about like this one—one of our Lagunies. O’ course, I don’t say that all Texas cows has horns like that as yearlin’s; you can see that fer yore own self right here. Only way we could convince that gentleman was to show him.”

“Well, that may all be,” said Pattison, nettled. “Anyhow, I always take my own judgment in cattle, ages and all. I’ve known buyers who couldn’t tell long twos from threes. I’ve studied cattle.”

“I never did much,” said Len Hersey; “I never had time. But my folks couldn’t never break me of gamblin’—monte, you know. Sometimes I win a shirt, and then agin I’d lose one. Right now”—he looked ruefully at his elbow—“I’d like fer to win one. I’ll gamble that critter’s a yearlin’, now. I’d hate to take a man’s money on a cinch; but ef you, now, was feelin’ you’d like to peel off a couple of hunderd against my hawse an’ saddle, an’ what’s left of my shirt, why, I’d hate to rob you—I’d bet that that’s a yearlin’. I was goin’ to kill it fer beef. We don’t eat the horns, mister, but them Lagunies is special tender on account of that something in the water around there.”

“You fool Texans deserve to be trimmed,” said Pattison; “a boy like you putting your judgment up against that of one of the oldest buyers that ever saw Kansas City.”

“I know it—I know I’m foolish,” nodded Len Hersey. “I was borned thataway. I allus hatter be bettin’ on monte er somethin’. Still I’ll bet thataway on this here yearlin’ ef you insist. Does you?”

“I certainly do, just to teach you a lesson. Here, Mr. Nabours”—he pulled out his roll of bills once more—“take this couple hundred, against this man’s horse and saddle. You be the judge. He bets that’s a yearling. That suit you?” He turned to Len Hersey, who still was holding the mooted animal on his reata.

“Yes, all right,” humbly replied that youth.

“Throw him, Len,” commanded Nabours; “then we’ll all look him over and decide.” He was as solemn as his man.

Len sunk a spur and with a leap his pony crossed in front of the quarry, swept its feet from under it. It was thrown with such violence that one of its horns was knocked off and lay entirely free on the grass. Jim Nabours, dismounting, gravely held up the remaining horn, easily detachable from the normal stubby yearling growth on the dogy’s head. He looked at Pattison dubiously, none too sure how he would take this range jest. But the Northern man was a sportsman. He broke into a roar of laughter, which for hours he renewed whenever the thought again came to his mind.[1]

“Give him his money, Nabours,” said he. “He’s won it fair and I’ve had a lesson, and when your boys come to town the treat’s on me. Keep those horns for me,” he added. “If I don’t sell old Mitch or young Phil Armour at Kansas City with those horns I’ll eat them both!” Again he went off into gusty laughter, in which all could join.

“Sho, now,” said Len Hersey. “Now look at that! He must of got his horns jarred loose, like, in some night run in the timber. I’ve knowed that to happen.”

“Len,” commanded Nabours, “I don’t want no more of this damned foolishness. Here’s ten dollars, and that’s enough to buy you a shirt, and I want to see you do it. He’ll only play the rest at monte or faro or something,” turning to Pattison.

“No, give it all to him,” the latter rejoined. “It’s his. Let him play it. I’ve done as much myself when I was younger. And monte’s a cinch compared to buying and packing and shipping cattle to the East.”

They turned and rode toward town, young in the youth of the open range, where to-morrow did not yet loom.

[1] The foundation of this anecdote is to be found in Saunder’s _Trail Drivers of Texas_.