CHAPTER II
A SURPRISE
It was early morning, and the Bar O Ranch slept, heedless of the keenlate-autumn air that had in it just a faint, brisk hint of the fallfrosts to come. Whitey came out of the ranch house and moved toward thestable. Sitting Bull trudged after him.
The dog was entirely rested, having slept the better part of two daysand nights. He seemed to know that Whitey was his new owner. Dogs havean instinct for that sort of thing. And though Bull was civil andfriendly enough with every one else on the ranch, he took to Whitey byselection.
At six o'clock each night Bull sat near the ranch-house front door asthough waiting for some one. He waited a long time. Bill Jordan, whoprided himself on what he knew about dogs, and men, said that Bull'sformer owner probably was a city man, and was in the habit of cominghome at six; that the dog was waiting for him to appear. Be that as itmay, in the days to come Bull gave up this custom. No one knew what hefelt about the loss of his old master. He became a Montana dog. The citywas to know him no more.
Now he waddled along after Whitey, who was making for a straw stack,near the stable. Among the field mice, gophers, rabbits, and such thatthought this stack was a pretty nice place to hang around, were two hensthat were of the same opinion. At least they made their nests in thestack and laid their eggs there. And they were the only hens that theBar O boasted, for hens were scarce in Montana in those days--as Bucksaid, "almost as scarce as hen's teeth, an' every one knows there ain'tno such thing."
It was Whitey's particular business to gather the eggs of those hens,which they saw fit to lay early in the morning. So Whitey came to thestack early, to be ahead of any weasels or ferrets, who had an uncommonfondness for eggs. This morning as he moved around the stack he didn'tfind any eggs, but he saw something black and pointed sticking out ofthe straw. Whitey took hold of the object and pulled, and the thinglengthened out in his hands.
And right there a sort of shivery feeling attacked Whitey's spine andmoved up until it reached his hair, which straightway began to stand onend, for the object was a boot and in it was a man's leg. The boot came,followed by the leg, followed by a man. From what might be called thetwin straw beds, another man emerged. Both sat upright in the straw andrubbed their eyes. Whitey didn't wait to see if any more were coming, oreven to think of where he was going. He fled.
Instinct took him toward the ranch house, and good fortune brought BillJordan out of the door at the same moment.
"Bill!" yelled Whitey, "there's two men in the straw stack!"
Bill did not appear unduly excited. "They ain't eatin' the straw, arethey?" he inquired.
"No, but they look awfully tough, and they nearly gave meheart-disease," Whitey panted.
"If tough-lookin' folks could give me heart-disease, I'd of bin deadlong ago," Bill responded. "Let's go an' size 'em up."
Bill strolled to the stack with Whitey. The two men, now thoroughlyawake, were still sitting upright in the straw. In front of them stoodSitting Bull. His lower jaw was sticking out farther than usual, and hewas watching the men and awaiting events.
IN FRONT OF THEM STOOD SITTING BULL]
"Hey! Call off yer dog, will ye?" requested one of the men.
"He ain't mine," Bill answered calmly, indicating Whitey. "He's his."
"Well, get him to call him off," said the man. "Every time we move hemakes a noise like sudden death."
Whitey summoned Bull, who came to him obediently enough, and the menrose to their feet, and stretched themselves and brushed off some of thestraw that clung to their not over-neat attire. They were not asbad-looking as they might have been, neither were they as good-looking.One was tall and slim and wore a dark beard. The other was almost astall, but, being very fat, did not look his height. He wasclean-shaven, or would have been had it not been for about three days'stubbly growth. Their clothes were well-worn, and they wore no collars,but their boots were good.
"What you fellers doin' here?" demanded Bill. "Ain't the bunk house goodenough for you?"
"We got in late, an' ev'body was in bed," said the taller of the two."We're walkin' through for th' thrashin'."
"Well, yer late for that too," said Bill.
The threshing in the early days of Montana was an affair in which manypeople of all sorts took part, as will be seen later. Bill questionedthe men, and their story was brought out. It seemed that they had comefrom Billings, in search of work at threshing. The taller, thin one wasnamed Hank, but was usually called "String Beans," on account of hisscissors-like appearance. He had formerly been a cowpuncher. The otherhad been a waiter, until he got too fat, then he had become a cook.Originally named Albert, after he had waited in a restaurant for awhile he had been dubbed "Ham And," which, you may know, is a short wayof ordering ham and eggs. And this name in time was reduced to "Ham."
Bill Jordan did not seem to take the men seriously. Their names may havehad something to do with his attitude, and the early West was notover-suspicious, anyway. It had been said that "out here we take everyman to be honest, until he is proven to be a thief, and in the East theytake every man to be a thief, until he is proven to be honest." You canbelieve that or not, as you happen to live in the West or in the East.Besides, Bill could make use of the talents of String Beans and Ham. Heneeded "hands" to work on the ranch.
When Whitey found that his supposed tragedy was turning into a comedy,he felt rather bad about it, especially as Bill was inclined to guy him.
"Lucky you didn't shoot up them two fellers what's named after food,"Bill said, when the strangers had retired to the bunk house. "Or knock'em out with some of them upper-cuts you're so handy in passin''round." For a boy, Whitey was an expert boxer.
"What was I to think, finding them that way?" Whitey retorted. "And theydon't look very good to me yet."
"Clothin' is only skin deep," said Bill.
Whitey felt called on to justify his alarm. "It's not only theirclothes," he said, "but their looks. You noticed that Bull didn't likethem, and you know dogs have true instinct about judging people."
"Let me tell you somethin' about dogs," began Bill, who usually waswilling to tell Whitey, or anybody else, something about anything. "Dogsis supposed to be democratic, but they ain't. They don't like shabbymen. I'm purty fond of dogs, but they got one fault--they're snobs. Theydon't like shabby men," Bill repeated for emphasis.
As Whitey thought of this he remembered that the dogs he had known hadthis failing, if it was a failing. He also tried to think of some reasonfor it, so he could prove that Bill was wrong, but he couldn't. That is,he couldn't think of anything until Bill had gone away and it was toolate. Then it occurred to him that it was only the dogs that belonged tothe well-dressed that disliked the poorly dressed. That a shabby man'sdog loved him just as well as though he wore purple and fine linen,whatever that was. Whitey looked around for Bill to confound him withthis truth, but Bill had disappeared--a way he had of doing the momenthe got the better of an argument.
If the two men were aching to work, they had not long to suffer; BillJordan soon found occupation for them. Slim, the negro cook, had beentaken with a "misery" in his side, and Ham was installed in his place.And to do Ham justice he was not such a bad cook. The ranch handsallowed that he couldn't have been worse than Slim, anyway. String Beansdid not make so much of a hit as a cowpuncher. Bill watched some of hisefforts, and said that though he was a bad puncher he was a good liarfor saying he'd ever seen a cow before. So String Beans was sent to themine to work.
This quartz mine, up in the mountains, was the one near which Injun andWhitey had had so many exciting adventures. Now they owned an interestin it, as has been told, though Mr. Sherwood and a tribe of DakotaIndians were the principal shareholders. During the summer the mine hadbeen undergoing development, and the first shipment of ore was soon tobe made.
With String Beans working at the mine, and Ham improving the men'sdigestion as a cook, it began to look as though Whitey's idea that theywere desperate characters was ill-founded. In
fact, the thought hadalmost passed from his mind, and was quite forgotten on a certainSaturday. On that day Injun and Whitey were free from the teachings ofJohn Big Moose, and were out on the plains for antelope. They didn't getan antelope, didn't even see one. All they got were appetites; thoughWhitey's appetite came without calling, as it were, and always excitedthe admiration of Bill Jordan. After dinner that evening Whitey went tothe bunk house. Some of the cowpunchers were in from the range, andWhitey loved to hear the yarns they would spin.
So he lay in a bunk and listened to a number of stories, and wonderedif they were all true--and it is a singular fact that some of them were.But Whitey's day's hunt had been long, and his dinner had been big, andhis eyes began to droop.
Buck Higgins was in the midst of a tale about being thrown from hiscayuse and breaking his right arm. There was a wild stallion in thisstory, which every puncher in seven states or so had tried to capture.Now, Buck, with his right arm broken, naturally had to throw his ropewith his left, and his manner of doing that took some description. Itwas during this that in Whitey's mind he, in a mysterious way, changedto Buck, or rather Buck changed to Whitey, and the stallion changed toan antelope, and pretty soon things began to get rather vague generally.
When Whitey awoke, the bunk house was almost dark. How long he had beenlying asleep he did not know. The light came from a candle, andpresently Whitey heard voices. Three men were seated near by, and Whiteywas about to get out of the bunk, when he recognized the voice ofString Beans, and something held him back. It was evident that the mendid not know that he was there.
Whitey felt something warm stir against him, and, startled, put out hishand and encountered a hairy surface. It was Sitting Bull, who hadcrawled into the bunk after Whitey had fallen asleep, and crowded inbetween the boy and the wall. At the sound of String Beans' voice Whiteyfelt the hair along Bull's neck rise. He remembered the dog's dislikefor the two men, and put his hand over Bull's mouth to keep him fromgrowling. Whitey was glad he did not snore. He might now have a chanceto learn whether the two were on the level or not.
For the moment Whitey had some qualms about listening, but he soondismissed them. If these men were open and aboveboard, why were theywhispering in the dimly lighted bunk house? Whitey had never been ableto overcome the first distrust he had felt for String Beans and Ham. Healso had a feeling that he ought to justify that distrust, that in a wayit was up to him. So he continued to eavesdrop.
String's tones were low, and did not come to Whitey distinctly. Thiswas unfortunate in one way, but fortunate in another, for had the menbeen nearer they probably would have seen the boy. Soon another voicebroke in, and Whitey knew it as that of "Whiff" Gates, a puncher who wasa constant smoker. Then came another voice, that of Ham And.
Whiff Gates did not bear a good reputation, and it was only because ofthe scarcity of help that Bill Jordan kept him on. As Whitey reflectedon this, and the "birds of a feather flock together" idea, he kept verystill. His patience was soon rewarded, for as the men grew more earnestin their talk, their tones became louder, though Whitey could not hearas distinctly as he would have liked.
However, he gathered that String had returned from the mine on accountof an injury to his foot, caused by a piece of rock falling on it. Thatthere had been some excitement at the mine, owing to a "bug hole" beingdiscovered. Whitey learned afterwards this was a sort of pocket causedby the dripping of water, and containing a small but very rich quantityof ore. Whitey also heard something about a certain date, on which thethree were to be at a certain place, but here, to his disgust, thevoices were again lowered, as if in caution.
On the whole, though this secret meeting seemed suspicious, the boy didnot learn enough to form a basis for action. Presently the men wentaway, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left thebunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tellBill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at himand hand him one of those arguments he couldn't answer.
But the next day he took Injun into his confidence. Injun had no use forString and Ham, and furthermore was a person who could keep a secret.And here was something for the boys to keep to themselves--amystery,--something to be solved. They would lie low and await events.It made them feel quite important.