CHAPTER XIII
AGAINST HIS RECORD
On the level stretch between the ranch-house and the creek the cowboysstaged, after dinner, a Frontier Day show and a Fourth of Julycelebration combined. The fun began mildly with the three-legged racesand the business of the greased pig. From these diversions itproceeded to foot races, in which Indians shone, and to keenlycontested pony races between cowboys, Reservation bucks and sports fromSleepy Cat. Money was stacked with freedom and differences of opinionwere intensified by victory and defeat.
While the spirit ran high, rodeo riding began with the master artistsof the range and the pink of American horsemanship in the saddle. Ineach succeeding contest the Sleepy Cat visitors headed by Sawdy andLefever with big loose bunches of currency backed their favoritesfreely, and men that counted nothing of caution in their make-up tookthe other end of every exciting event. Flushed faces and loud voicesadded to the rapidly shifting excitement as one event followed another,and the betting fever keenly roused called, after every possible wagerhad been laid, for fresh material to work on.
It was at this juncture that the shooting matches began. In a line andin a country in which many excelled in perhaps the most importantregard, rivalry ran high and critics were naturally fastidious. Thetemptation to belittle even excellent work with rifle and revolver was,in Sawdy and especially in Carpy, partly due to temperament. Both menwere bad gamesters because they bet on feeling rather than judgment.They would back a man, or the horse of a man they liked, against a manthey did not like and sometimes thereby knew what it was to close theday with empty pockets.
On this Fourth of July at Doubleday's, both men, as well as Lefever,had been hit by hard luck. Their free criticism of the horse-racingand the shooting did not pass unresented and the fact that Tom Stoneand his following had most of the Sleepy Cat money while the sun wasstill high did not tend to temper the acerbity of their remarks.
Nothing that the crack shots of the range could do would satisfy eitherSawdy or Carpy. Van Horn, himself an expert with rifle and gun, wasmaster of these ceremonies and the belittling by the Sleepy Cat sportsof the best the cowboys could show, nettled him: "Before you knock thisany more," he said, "put up some better shooting."
The taunt went far enough home to stir the fault-finders. Sawdy andCarpy took grumpy counsel together. Presently they hunted up Laramie,who in front of the ranch-house was talking horses with Kitchen andDoubleday. They told him the situation and asked for help: "Come overto the creek and show the bunch up, Jim," was Sawdy's appeal.
The response was cold. Laramie refused to take any part in theshooting. Sawdy could not move him. In revenge he borrowed what moneyLaramie had--not much in all--and went back in bad humor. With thepeeve of defeated men, the Sleepy Cat sports called for more horseracing to retrieve their fortunes--only to lose what money they hadleft and suffer fresh jeering from Van Horn and his following.
But abating in defeat and with empty pockets, nothing of theirconfident swagger, Carpy and Sawdy reinforced this time byLefever--McAlpin trailing along as a mourner--headed again for theranch-house after Laramie.
They found him on a bench where he could command the front door,whittling and talking idly with Bill Bradley. Laramie was there intenton waylaying Kate, within. His friends descended on him for the secondtime in a body. They laid their discomfiture before him. They beggedhim to pull them out of the hole. It was too much in the circumstancesto refuse men he counted on when he, himself, needed friends, but heyielded with an ill grace: "What do you want me to do?" he demandedfinally.
They told him. He would not stand up before a target, nor would heshoot in competition with anybody else.
"I've only got a few cartridges, anyway," he objected. "Suppose whenthey're shot away these fellows get a fight going on me?"
It was argued that there were enough gunmen in the Sleepy Cat crowd fordefensive purposes and that there was no end of available ammunition.A way was found to meet Laramie's objection on every point and it onlyremained to hatch up a scheme for lightening the cattlemen's pockets.
With Carpy, Lefever and Sawdy, Laramie sat down apart. An exchange ofviews took place. Sawdy had in mind something he had once seen Laramieachieve and on this--and the possibility of its success--the talkcentered. The feat, it was conceded, would be a stiff one. It was putup to Laramie; he consented, after some wrangling and with misgivings,to try to save the day for his misguided Sleepy Cat friends. Themoment consent was assured, his backers hurried away in a body--McAlpinas crier, Lefever and Sawdy to raise money, and Carpy to bully Van Hornand Stone and their following.
The news that Laramie would shoot caused a stir. Not everyone presenthad seen him shoot. His reputed mastery of rifle and gun was often inquestion; and no more grueling test before friends and enemies couldever be given than what he was to attempt now.
Not everyone got clearly as the talk went on just what the trial was tobe. Sawdy having reinforced his resources, announced the event asLaramie against his record--to tie or to beat.
Laramie, himself, unmindful of the controversy, held to the bench. Hewas still sitting, head down, and still whittling, when Bradley came tosay the crowd was waiting. He asked Bradley to bring up his horse.
Kate coming out of the house drew his attention. He threw away thestick in his hand and rose.
"I hear you are going to shoot," she said.
"Can't get out of it very well, I guess."
"You wouldn't shoot, the time I asked you to."
"I didn't actually refuse, did I?"
"Pretty near it."
"It's a harder case today. Your men have got all the money. Myfriends are broke. And they've asked me to help them out somehow.That's the only reason. If you really want to see me shoot, all you'vegot to do is to tell me the next time you see me."
"Oh, I'm going to see you shoot now." She looked at the gun holsterslung at his left hip. "I hear you are left-handed."
"They've got work enough lined up today for two hands."
Bradley returned with the horse and climbed awkwardly down from thesaddle. Laramie tried the cinches and turned to Kate.
"Are you all ready?" she asked.
"Just about."
"You try the cinches; I should think you'd want to try your gun."
"I tried that this morning before I left home. All I've got to dobefore I begin is to slip an extra cartridge into the cylinder."
Leading his pony, Laramie, clinging to the talk as long as he could,walked with Kate toward the creek. Leaving her on a slight rise, wherehe told her he thought she could see, he got into the saddle and rodedown to where the crowd had assembled.
On a stretch of the trail extending along the creek, John Frying Pan,under the direction of Sawdy and Van Horn, was placing at intervals offrom fifty to one hundred and fifty yards a series of targets. Thesewere ordinary potatoes, left over from the barbecue, but selected withgreat care as to size and shape by the man whose money was up--Sawdy;Frying Pan's work was to impale them on low-growing scrub along thetrail to serve as targets. Against these targets--six innumber--Laramie was to undertake to ride and to split five out of thesix as he galloped past them with six and no more bullets. Thepotatoes were up when Laramie joined Sawdy, and Lefever with leatherlungs announced the terms of the test. Accompanied by Sawdy, Van Hornand Frying Pan, Laramie rode slowly down the course--a quarter of amile long--examining the roadway and the targets. Here and there aloose stone was removed from the trail; one potato was moved from a dipin the course to a safer point; one was raised and one placed moreclearly in sight.
Having ridden to the end, Laramie expressed himself as satisfied withthe conditions. Alone, he went back over the course and starting downthe creek made a trial heat at full speed past the targets. One ofthese at his request was shifted again. While he watched this change,Sawdy and Lefever, surrounded by their followers, were crowding him asrace touts crowd a favorite jockey with final words of admonition andadv
ice. When the one target was satisfactorily adjusted, Laramiebreaking away from everybody returned alone to the starting point.Dismounting, and taking his time to everything, he again tested hiscinches, drew his gun from its holster and breaking it slipped a sixthcartridge into the cylinder. Dropping the gun back into place, hepulled his hat a little lower, glanced down the course and up towardthe little hill on which he had parted from Kate. She was standingwhere he left her but Van Horn had ridden up and, joining Kate, wastalking to her. While she listened to him she watched the preparationsbelow.
Laramie spoke to his pony, patted him on the neck and mounted.Wheeling, he swung out into a wide circle across the level bench andwith gradually increasing speed into a measured gallop. Molded intoone flesh with his mount, Laramie, impassive in the saddle as a statue,watched and nursed to his liking the pony's gait. When the rhythmsuited, he urged the horse to a longer stride and circling back intothe course, drew his gun, held it high in the air and, swinging itslowly as if like a lariat, bore down at full speed on the first target.
Markers for both sides in the betting stood to watch each potato. Nosignal would mean the potato had been missed; for each hit, a hat wasto be thrown into the air. In a complete silence among the spectatorsevery eye was fixed on Laramie. Those close at hand saw him, with hisleft arm still high in the air, sway slightly backward and slowlyforward, while with the circling gun poised at arm's length he shrankcloser and lower into the saddle. When he neared the first target,throwing his left arm toward it like a bolt, he fired, sped on and wasagain swinging his gun. He had hardly covered six more paces before ahat was tossed into the air behind him.
A yell went up from his friends. Horsemen wheeled into the coursebehind the flying marksman. With five potatoes still to negotiate theywere afraid to cheer. But as one hat after another along the shootingline--the second, the third and the fourth--were tossed up from thetarget behind the speeding horseman, the Sleepy Cat men bellowed withjoyful confidence. The fifth target was of unusual distance--a hundredand fifty yards--from the fourth. Leaving the fourth, Laramie's horsebroke and the onlookers saw that his rider was in trouble. He kept theswing of his gun without breaking the rhythm, but his efforts were inhis bridle arm to steady his horse.
The hopes of his backers fell as they saw how stubborn the pony hadbecome. The hundred and fifty yards were barely enough to bring himunder control. Laramie still circling his raised gun did bring himunder. But he was already nearing the fifth target. And to the horrorof his friends passed it without attempting to fire.
Of the two chances left him to tie--which meant to win--he had passedup one; the sixth and last meant life or death to the shaken hopes ofhis backers.
They saw him settled once more into the long, even stride he needed forthe shot and their breaths hung on each flying leap that brought therider nearer his last chance. The sixth target was separated by barelyfifty yards from the fifth. Laramie had covered half the distance whenhe completely reversed his form. He stretched gradually up in thesaddle and riding close in on the target itself, rose to his fullheight in the stirrups and smashed his fifth shot almost straight downon it; the potato split into a dozen fragments. Bill Bradley at thesixth was watching for Sawdy; his hat sailed twenty feet in the air.The yelling crowd rode Laramie down as he galloped in a long circleback, his lines swung on his forearm, while he slipped four freshcartridges into the warm cylinder of his revolver.
He dismounted to ease his cinches. "I guess I over-did it," heexplained to the friends that crowded closest. "I got the cinches alittle tight. The pony didn't like it. I couldn't get the gait intime for the Number Five. But I knew I could make Number Six."
Remounting, he made his way through the crowd back over the course.Kate was still on the hill. "You won, didn't you?" she cried as herode toward her.
"If I hadn't, I guess I'd have had to head straight across the creekfor home. Could you see?"
"I watched you the whole way. What a long arm you have."
"While these tin horns are counting their money, would you like to showme the ponies?"
"You have a long memory, too."
"I was brought up a good deal with Indians. Shall I hunt up Van Hornto go with us?"
She darted a quick glance at him: "Why, yes, surely," she retorted, "ifyou want him."
Laramie was tearing out a cigarette paper: "I could look at themwithout him," he returned calmly.
"I don't see him, anyway," murmured Kate, professing to sweep thecrowded course with her eyes.
"Don't look too hard," cautioned Laramie.
"I suppose we might save time," she suggested, ignoring his lastremark, "by going without him."