The Ridin' Kid from Powder River

  CHAPTER IX

  ROWDY--AND BLUE SMOKE

  It has been said that Necessity is the mother of Invention--well, itgoes without saying that the cowboy is the father, and Pete was closelyrelated to these progenitors of that most necessary adjunct of success.Moreover, he could have boasted a coat of arms had he been at allfamiliar with heraldry and obliged to declare himself.

  Pete.]

  A pinto cayuse rampant; a longhorn steer regardant; two sad-eyed,unbranded calves couchant--one in each corner of the shield to kind ofbalance her up; gules, several clumps of something representingsagebrush; and possibly a rattlesnake coiled beneath the sagebrush anddescribed as "repellent" and holding in his open jaws a streaming mottoreading, "I'm a-comin'."

  Had it been essential that Pete's escutcheon should bear the barsinister, doubtless he would have explained its presence with the easyassertion that the dark diagonal represented the vague ancestry of thetwo sad-eyed calves couchant. Anybody could see that the calves werepart longhorn and part Hereford!

  Pete rode out of Concho glittering in his new-found glory of shiningbit and spur, wide-brimmed Stetson, and chaps studded withnickel-plated conchas. The creak of the stiff saddle-leather was musicto him. His brand-new and really good equipment almost made up for thehorse--an ancient pensioner that never seemed to be just certain whenhe would take his next step and seemed a trifle surprised when he hadtaken it. He was old, amiable, and willing, internally, but his legs,somewhat of the Chippendale order, had seen better days. Ease and goodfeeding had failed to fill him out. He was past taking on flesh. Rothkept him about the place for short trips. Roth's lively team of pintoswere at the time grazing in a distant summer pasture.

  Rowdy--the horse--seemed to feel that the occasion demanded somethingof him. He pricked his ears as they crossed the canon bottom andbreasted the ascent as bravely as his three good legs would let him.At the top he puffed hard. Despite Pete's urging, he stood stolidlyuntil he had gathered enough ozone to propel him farther. "Git along,you doggone ole cockroach!" said Pete. But Rowdy was firm. He turnedhis head and gazed sadly at his rider with one mournful eye that saidplainly, "I'm doing my level best." Pete realized that the ground justtraveled was anything but level, and curbed his impatience. "I'll jestkind o' save him for the finish," he told himself. "Then I'll hook thespurs into him and ride in a-boilin'. Don't care what he does afterthat. He can set down and rest if he wants to. Git along, oldsoap-foot," he cried--"soap-foot" possibly because Rowdy occasionallyslipped. His antique legs didn't always do just what he wanted them todo.

  Topping the mesa edge, Pete saw the distant green that fringed theConcho home-ranch, topped by a curl of smoke that drifted lazily acrossthe gold of the morning. Without urging, Rowdy broke into a stifftrot, that sounded Pete's inmost depths, despite his natural good seatin the saddle. "Quit it!" cried Pete presently. "You'll be goin' oncrutches afore night if you keep that up.--And so'll I," he added.Rowdy immediately stopped and turned his mournful eye on Pete.

  If the trot had been the rhythmic _one, two, three, four_, Pete couldhave ridden and rolled cigarettes without spilling a flake of tobacco;but the trot was a sort of _one, two--almost three_, then, whump!_three_ and a quick _four_, and so on, a decidedly irregular meter inPete's lyrical journey toward new fields and fairer fortune. "I'llsure make Andy sit up!" he declared as the Concho buildings loomedbeneath the cool, dark-green outline of the trees. He dismounted toopen and close a gate. A half-mile farther he again dismounted to openand close another gate. From there on was a straightaway road to theranch-buildings. Pete gathered himself together, pushed his hat downfirmly--it was new and stiff--and put Rowdy to a high lope. This wassomething like it! Possibly Rowdy anticipated a good rest, and hay.In any event, he did his best, rounding into the yard and up to thehouse like a true cow-pony. All would have been well, as Pete realizedlater, had it not been for the pup. The pup saw in Rowdy a newplayfellow, and charged from the door-step just as that good steed wasmentally preparing to come to a stop. The pup was not mentallyprepared in any way, and in his excitement he overshot the mark. Hecaromed into Rowdy's one recalcitrant leg--it usually happens thatway--and Rowdy stepped on him. Pete was also not mentally prepared todismount at the moment, but he did so as Rowdy crashed down in a cloudof dust. The pup, who imagined himself killed, shrieked shrilly andran as hard as he could to the distant stables to find out if it werenot so.

  Pete picked up his hat. Rowdy scrambled up and shook himself. Petewas mad. Over on the edge of the bunk-house veranda sat four or fiveof the Concho boys. They rocked back and forth and slapped their legsand shouted. It was a trying situation.

  The foreman, Bailey, rose as Pete limped up. "We're livin' over here,"said Bailey. "Did you want to see some one?"

  Pete wet his lips. "The fo'man. I--I--jest rid over to see how youwas makin' it."

  "Why, we 're doin' right fair. How you makin' it yourself?"

  "I'm here," said Pete succinctly and without a smile.

  "So we noticed," said the foreman mildly, too mildly, for one of thepunchers began to laugh, and the rest joined in.

  "Wisht I had a hoss like that," said a cowboy. "Always did hate toclimb offen a hoss. I like to have 'em set down and kind o' let mestep off easy-like."

  Pete sorely wanted to make a sharp retort, but he had learned thewisdom of silence. He knew that he had made himself ridiculous beforethese men. It would be hard to live down this thing. He deemedhimself sadly out of luck, but he never lost sight of the main chancefor an instant.

  Bailey, through young Andy White, knew of Pete and was studying him.The boy had self-possession, and he had not cursed the horse forstumbling. He saw that Pete was making a fight to keep his temper.

  "You lookin' for work?" he said kindly.

  "I was headed that way," replied Pete.

  "Can you rope?"

  "Oh, some. I kin keep from tanglin' my feet in a rope when it'shangin' on the horn and I'm standin' off a piece."

  "Well, things are slack right now. Don't know as I could use you.What's your name, anyhow?"

  "I'm Pete Annersley. I reckon you know who my pop was."

  Bailey nodded. "The T-Bar-T," he said, turning toward the men. Theyshook their heads and were silent, gazing curiously at the boy, of whomit was said that he had "bumped off" two T-Bar-T boys in a raid someyears ago. Young Pete felt his ground firmer beneath him. The men hadceased laughing. If it had not been for that unfortunate stumble . . .

  "You're sportin' a right good rig," said the foreman.

  "I aim to," said Pete quickly. "If I hadn't gone broke buyin' it, I'dride up here on a real hoss."

  "Things are pretty slack right now," said Bailey. "Glad to seeyou--but they won't be nothin' doin' till fall. Won't you set down?We're goin' to eat right soon."

  "Thanks. I ain't a-missin' a chanct to eat. And I reckon ole Rowdythere could do somethin' in that line hisself."

  Bailey smiled. "Turn your horse into the corral. Better pack yoursaddle over here. That pup will chew them new latigos if he gets nearit."

  "That doggone pup come mighty nigh bustin' me,"--and Pete smiled forthe first time since arriving. "But the pup was havin' a good time,anyhow."

  "Say, I want to shake with you!" said a big puncher, rising andsticking out a strong, hairy hand.

  Pete's face expressed surprise. "Why--sure!" he stammered, notrealizing that his smiling reference to the pup had won him a friend.

  "He's sure a hard-boiled kid," said one of the men as Pete unsaddledand led Rowdy to the corral. "Did you catch his eye? Black--andshinin'; plumb full of deviltry--down in deep. That kid's had to hitsome hard spots afore he growed to where he is."

  "And he can take his medicine," asserted another cowboy. "He was madenough to kill that hoss and the bunch of us--but he held her down andbellied up to us like a real one. Looks like he had kind of a Injunstreak in him."

  Bailey nodded. "Wish I had a job for the ki
d. He would make good.He's been driftin' round the country with old man Montoya for a coupleof years. Old man Annersley picked him up down to Concho. The kid waswith a horse-trader. He would have been all right with Annersley, butyou boys know what happened. This ain't no orphan asylum, but--well,anyhow--did you size up the rig he's sportin'?"

  "Some rig."

  "And he says he went broke to buy her."

  "Some kid."

  "Goin' to string him along?" queried another cowboy.

  "Nope," replied Bailey. "The pup strung him plenty. Mebby we'll givehim a whirl at a real horse after dinner. He's itchin' to climb a realone and show us, and likewise to break in that new rig."

  "Or git busted," suggested one of the men.

  "By his eye, I'd say he'll stick," said Bailey. "Don't you boys go toraggin' him too strong about ridin', for I ain't aimin' to kill thekid. If he can stick on Blue Smoke, I've a good mind to give him ajob. I told Andy to tell him there wa'n't no chanct up here--but thekid comes to look-see for hisself. I kind o' like that."

  "You 're gettin' soft in your haid, Bud," said a cowboy affectionately.

  "Mebby, but I don't have to put cotton in my ears to keep my brainsin," Bailey retorted mildly.

  The cowboy who had spoken was suffering from earache and had an earplugged with cotton.

  Pete swaggered up and sat down. "Who's ridin' that blue out there?" hequeried, gesturing toward the corral.

  "He's a pet," said Bailey. Nobody rides him."

  "Uh-huh. Well, I reckon the man who tries 'll be one of ole Abraham'spets right off soon after," commented Pete. "He don't look good to me."

  "You sabe 'em?" queried Bailey and winked at a companion.

  "Nope," replied Pete. "I can't tell a hoss from a hitchin'-rail, 'lesshe kicks me."

  "Well, Blue Smoke ain't a hitchin'-rail," asserted Bailey. "What doyou say if we go over and tell the missis we're starvin' to death?"

  "Send Pete over," suggested a cowboy.

  Bailey liked a joke. As he had said, things were dull, just then."Lope over and tell my missis we're settin' out here starvin' todeath," he suggested to Pete.

  Pete strode to the house and entered, hat in hand. The foreman's wife,a plump, cheery woman, liked nothing better than to joke with the men.Presently Pete came out bearing the half of a large, thick, juicy piein his hands. He marched to the bunkhouse and sat down near themen--but not too near. He ate pie and said nothing. When he hadfinished the pie, he rolled a cigarette and smoked, in huge content.The cowboys glanced at one another and grinned.

  "Well," said Bailey presently; "what's the answer?"

  Pete grinned. "Misses Bailey says to tell you fellas to keep onstarvin' to death. It'll save cookin'."

  "I move that we get one square before we cross over," said Bailey,rising. "Come on, boys. I can smell twelve o'clock comin' from thekitchen."