CHAPTER IV. Some Hopes
On the third day after the Happy Family decided that there should besome word from Chicago; and, since that day was Sunday, they rode in abody to Dry Lake after it. They had not discussed the impending tragedyvery much, but they were an exceedingly Unhappy Family, nevertheless;and, since Flying U coulee was but a place of gloom, they were notaverse to leaving it behind them for a few hours, and riding where everystick and stone did not remind then of the Old Man.
In Dry Lake was a message, brief but heartening:
"J. G. still alive. Some hopes".
They left the station with lighter spirits after reading that; rode tothe hotel, tied their horses to the long hitching pole there and wentin. And right there the Happy Family unwittingly became cast for theleading parts in one of those dramas of the West which never is heardof outside the theater in which grim circumstance stages it for a singleplaying--unless, indeed, the curtain rings down on a tragedy that bringsthe actors before their district judge for trial. And, as so frequentlyis the case, the beginning was casual to the point of triviality.
Sary, Ellen, Marg'reet, Sybilly and Jos'phine Denson (spelled inaccordance with parental pronunciation) were swinging idly upon thehitching pole, with the self-conscious sang froid of country childrencome to town. They backed away from the Happy Family's approach, grinnedfoolishly in response to their careless greeting, and tittered openlyat the resplendence of the Native Son, who was wearing his black Angorachaps with the three white diamonds down each leg, the gay horsehairhatband, crimson neckerchief and Mexican spurs with their immenserowels and ornate conchos of hand-beaten silver. Sary, Ellen, Marg'reet,Jos'phine and Sybilly were also resplendent, in their way. Their carrotyhair was tied with ribbons quite aggressively new, their frecklesshone with maternal scrubbing, and there was a hint of home-made"crochet-lace" beneath each stiffly starched dress.
"Hello, kids," Weary greeted them amiably, with a secret smile over thememory of a time when they had purloined the Little Doctor's pills andhad made reluctant acquaintance with a stomach pump. "Where's the circusgoing to be at?"
"There ain't goin' to be no circus," Sybilly retorted, because she wasthe forward one of the family. "We're going away; on the train. The nextone that comes along. We're going to be on it all night, too; and we'llhave to eat on it, too."
"Well, by golly, you'll want something to eat, then!" Slim was feelingabstractedly in his pocket for a coin, for these were the nieces of theCountess, and therefore claimed more than a cursory interest fromSlim. "You take this up to the store and see if yuh can't swop it forsomething good to eat." Because Sary was the smallest of the lot hepressed the dollar into her shrinking, amazed palm.
"Paw's got more money'n that," Sybilly announced proudly. "Paw's gota million dollars. A man bought our ranch and gave him a lot of money.We're rich now. Maybe paw'll buy us a phony-graft. He said maybe hewould. And maw's goin' to have a blue silk dress with green onto it.And--"
"Better haze along and buy that grub stake," Slim interrupted the familygift for profuse speech. He had caught the boys grinning, and fanciedthat they were tracing a likeness between the garrulity of Sybilly andthe fluency of her aunt, the Countess. "You don't want that train to gooff and leave yuh, by golly."
"Wonder who bought Denson out?" Cal Emmett asked of no one inparticular, as the children went strutting off to the store to spend thedollar which little Sary clutched so tightly it seemed as if the goddessof liberty must surely have been imprinted upon her palm.
When they went inside and found Denson himself pompously "setting 'em upto the house," Cal repeated the question in a slightly different form tothe man himself.
Denson, while he was ready to impress the beholders with hisunaccustomed affluence, became noticeably embarrassed at the inquiry,and edged off into vague generalities.
"I jest nacherlly had to sell when I got m' price," he told the HappyFamily in a tone that savored strongly of apology. "I like the country,and I like m' neighbors fine. Never'd ask for better than the Flyin' Uhas been t' me. I ain't got no kick comin' there. Sorry to hear the OldMan's hurt back East. Mary was real put out at not bein' able tosee Louise 'fore she went away"--Louise being the Countess' and MaryDenson's sister--"but soon as I sold I got oneasy like. The fellerwanted p'session right away, too, so I told Mary we might as well startb'fore we git outa the notion. I wouldn't uh cared about sellin', maybe,but the kids needs to be in school. They're growin' up in ign'ranceout here, and Mary's folks wants us to come back 'n' settle close handyby--they been at us t' sell out and move fer the last five years, now,and I told Mary--"
Even Cal forgot, eventually, that he had asked a question which remainedunanswered; what interest he had felt at first was smothered to deathbeneath that blanket of words, and he eagerly followed the boys outand over to Rusty Brown's place, where Denson, because of an old grudgeagainst Rusty, might be trusted not to follow.
"Mamma!" Weary commented amusedly, when they were crossing the street,"that Denson bunch can sure talk the fastest and longest, and say theleast, of any outfit I ever saw."
"Wonder who did buy him out?" Jack Bates queried. "Old ginger-whiskersdidn't pass out any facts, yuh notice. He couldn't have got much; hisland's mostly gravel and 'doby patches. He's got a water right on FlyingU creek, you know--first right, at that, seems to me--and a dandy finespring in that coulee. Wonder why our outfit didn't buy him out--seeinghe wanted to sell so bad?"
"This wantin' to sell is something I never heard of b'fore," Slim saidslowly. "To hear him tell it, that ranch uh hisn was worth a dollar aninch, by golly. I don't b'lieve he's been wantin' to sell out. If hehad, Mis' Bixby woulda said something about it. She don't know aboutthis here sellin' business, or she'd a said--"
"Yeah, you can most generally bank on the Countess telling all sheknows," Cal assented with some sarcasm; at which Slim grunted and turnedsulky afterward.
Denson and his affairs they speedily forgot for a time, in the diversionwhich Rusty Brown's familiar place afforded to young men with unjadednerves and a zest for the primitive pleasures. Not until mid-afternoondid it occur to them that Flying U coulee was deserted by all save oldPatsy, and that there were chores to be done, if all the creatures ofthe coulee would sleep in comfort that night. Pink, therefore, withdrewhis challenge to the bunch, and laid his billiard cue down with a sighand the remark that all he lacked was time, to have the scalps of everylast one of them hanging from his belt. Pink was figurative in hisspeech, you will understand; and also a bit vainglorious over beatingAndy Green and Big Medicine twice in succession.
It occurred to Weary then that a word of cheer to the Old Man andhis anxious watchers might not cone amiss. Therefore the Happy Familymounted and rode to the depot to send it, and on the way wrangled overthe wording of the message after their usual contentious manner.
"Better tell 'em everything is fine, at this end uh the line," Calsuggested, and was hooted at for a poet.
"Just say," Weary began, when he was interrupted by the discordantclamor from a trainload of sheep that had just pulled in and stopped."'Maa-aa, Ma-a-aaa,' darn yuh," he shouted derisively, at the peering,plaintive faces, glimpsed between the close-set bars. "Mamma, how I dolove sheep!" Whereupon he put spurs to his horse and galloped down tothe station to rid his ears of the turbulent wave of protest from thecars.
Naturally it required some time to compose the telegram in a stylesatisfactory to all parties. Outside, cars banged together, an enginesnorted stertorously, and suffocating puffs of coal smoke now andthen invaded the waiting-room while the Happy Family were sending thatmessage of cheer to Chicago. If you are curious, the final version oftheir combined sentiments was not at all spectacular. It said merely:
"Everything fine here. Take good care of the Old Man. How's the Kidstacking up?"
It was signed simply "The Bunch."
"Mary's little lambs are here yet, I see," the Native Son remarkedcarelessly when they went out. "Enough lambs for all the Marys in thecountry. How wou
ld you like to be Mary?"
"Not for me," Irish declared, and turned his face away from the stenchof them.
Others there were who rode the length of the train with faces avertedand looks of disdain; cowmen, all of them, they shared the rangeprejudice, and took no pains to hide it.
The wind blew strong from the east, that day; it whistled through theopen, double-decked cars packed with gray, woolly bodies, whose voiceswere ever raised in strident complaint; and the stench of them smotethe unaccustomed nostrils of the Happy Family and put them to disgustedflight up the track and across it to where the air was clean again.
"Honest to grandma, I'd make the poorest kind of a sheepherder," BigMedicine bawled earnestly, when they were well away from the noise andsmell of the detested animals. "If I had to herd sheep, by cripes, doyou know what I'd do? I'd haze 'em into a coulee and turn loose with agood rifle and plenty uh shells, and call in the coyotes to git a squaremeal. That's the way I'd herd sheep. It's the only way you can shut 'emup. They just 'baa-aa, baa-aa, baa-aa' from the time they're droppedtill somebody kills 'em off. Honest, they blat in their sleep. I'veheard 'em."
"When you and the dogs were shooting off coyotes?" asked Andy Greenpointedly, and so precipitated dissension which lasted for ten miles.