The Flying U's Last Stand

  CHAPTER 16. "A RELL OLD COWPUNCHER"

  The hills began to look bigger, and kind of chilly and blue in thedeep places. The Kid wished that he could find some of the boys. He wasbeginning to get hungry, and he had long ago begun to get tired. But hewas undismayed, even when he heard a coyote yap-yap-yapping up a brushycanyon. It might be that he would have to camp out all night. TheKid had loved those cowboy yarns where the teller--who was always thehero--had been caught out somewhere and had been compelled to make a"dry camp." His favorite story of that type was the story of how HappyJack had lost his clothes and had to go naked through the breaks. It wasnot often that he could make Happy Jack tell him that story--never whenthe other boys were around. And there were other times; when Pink hadgot lost, down in the breaks, and had found a cabin just--in--TIME, withIrish sick inside and a blizzard just blowing outside, and they were madat each other and wouldn't talk, and all they had to eat was one weenty,teenty snow-bird, till the yearling heifer came and Pink killed it andthey had beefsteak and got good friends again. And there were othertimes, that others of the boys could tell about, and that the Kidthought about now with pounding pulse. It was not all childish fear ofthe deepening shadows that made his eyes big and round while he rodeslowly on, farther and farther into the breaks.

  He still drove the cattle before him; rather, he followed where thecattle led. He felt very big and very proud--but he did wish he couldfind the Happy Family! Somebody ought to stand guard, and he was gettingsleepy already.

  Silver stopped to drink at a little creek of clear, cold water. Therewas grass, and over there was a little hollow under a rock ledge. Thesky was all purple and red, like Doctor Dell painted in pictures, and upthe coulee, where he had been a little while ago, it was looking kindof dark. The Kid thought maybe he had better camp here till morning. Hereined Silver against a bank and slid off, and stood looking aroundhim at the strange hills with the huge, black boulders that looked likehouses unless you knew, and the white cliffs that looked--queer--unlessyou knew they were just cliffs.

  For the first time since he started, the Kid wished guiltily that hisdad was here or--he did wish the bunch would happen along! He wonderedif they weren't camped, maybe, around that point. Maybe they wouldhear him if he hollered as loud as he could, which he did, two or threetimes; and quit because the hills hollered back at him and they wouldn'tstop for the longest time--it was just like people yelling at him frombehind these rocks.

  The Kid knew, of course, who they were; they were Echo-boys, and theywouldn't hurt, and they wouldn't let you see them. They just ran awayand hollered from some other place. There was an Echo-boy lived up onthe bluff somewhere above the house. You could go down in the littlepasture and holler, and the Echo-boy would holler back The Kid was notafraid--but there seemed to be an awful lot of Echo-boys down in thesehills. They were quiet after a minute or so, and he did not call again.

  The Kid was six, and he was big for his age; but he looked very little,there alone in that deep coulee that was really more like a canyon--verylittle and lonesome and as if he needed his Doctor Dell to take him onher lap and rock him. It was just about the time of day when Doctor Dellalways rocked him and told him stories--about the Happy Family, maybe.The Kid hated to be suspected of baby ways, but he loved these tunes,when his legs were tired and his eyes wanted to go shut, and DoctorDell laid her cheek on his hair and called him her baby man. Nobody knewabout these times--that was most always in the bed room and the boyscouldn't hear.

  The Kid's lips quivered a little. Doctor Dell would be surprised whenhe didn't show up for supper, he guessed. He turned to Silver and to hisman ways, because he did not like to think about Doctor Dell just rightnow.

  "Well, old feller, I guess you want your saddle off, huh?" he quavered,and slapped the horse upon the shoulder. He lifted the stirrup--it wasa little stock saddle, with everything just like a big saddle exceptthe size; Daddy Chip had had it made for the Kid in Cheyenne, lastChristmas--and began to undo the latigo, whistling self-consciously andfinding that his lips kept trying to come unpuckered all the time,and trying to tremble just the way they did when he cried. He had nointention of crying.

  "Gee! I always wanted to camp out and watch the stars," he told Silverstoutly. "Honest to gran'ma, I think this is just--simply--GREAT! I betthem nester kids would be scared. Hunh!"

  That helped a lot. The Kid could whistle better after that. He pulled ofthe saddle, laid it down on its side so that the skirts would not bendout of shape--oh, he had been well-taught, with the whole Happy Familyfor his worshipful tutors!--and untied the rope from beside the fork."I'll have to anchor you to a tree, old-timer," he told the horsebriskly. "I'd sure hate to be set afoot in this man's country!" And aminute later--"Oh, funder! I never brought you any sugar!"

  Would you believe it, that small child of the Flying U picketed hishorse where the grass was best, and the knots he tied were the knots hisdad would have tied in his place. He unrolled his blanket and carriedit to the sheltered little nook under the ledge, and dragged the bag ofdoughnuts and the jelly and honey and bread after it. He had heard aboutthievish animals that will carry off bacon and flour and such. He knewthat he ought to hang his grub in a tree, but he could not reach up asfar as the fox who might try to help himself, so that was out of thequestion.

  The Kid ate a doughnut while he studied the matter out for himself. "Ifa coyote or a skink came pestering around ME, I'd frow rocks at him," hesaid. So when he had finished the doughnut he collected a pile of rocks.He ate another doughnut, went over and laid himself down on his stomachthe way the boys did, and drank from the little creek. It was just achance that he had not come upon water tainted with alkali--but fate iskind sometimes.

  So the Kid, trying very, very hard to act just like his Daddy Chip andthe boys, flopped the blanket vigorously this way and that in an effortto get it straightened, flopped himself on his knees and folded theblanket round and round him until he looked like a large, gray cocoon,and cuddled himself under the ledge with his head on the bag ofdoughnuts and his wide eyes fixed upon the first pale stars and hismind clinging sturdily to his mission and to this first real, man-sizedadventure that had come into his small life.

  It was very big and very empty--that canyon. He lifted his yellow headand looked to see if Silver were there, and was comforted at the sightof his vague bulk close by, and by the steady KR-UP, KR-UP of bittengrasses.

  "I'm a rell ole cowpuncher, all right," he told himself bravely; buthe had to blink his eyelashes pretty fast when he said it. A "rell olecowpuncher" wouldn't cry! He was afraid Doctor Dell would be AWFULLYs'prised, though...

  An unexpected sob broke loose, and another. He wasn't afraid--but...Silver, cropping steadily at the grass which must be his only supper,turned and came slowly toward the Kid in his search for sweetergrass-tufts. The Kid choked off the third sob and sat up ashamed. Hetugged at the bag and made believe to Silver that his sole trouble waswith his pillow.

  "By cripes, that damn' jelly glass digs right into my ear," hecomplained aloud, to help along the deception. "You go back,old-timer--I'm all right. I'm a--rell--ole cowpuncher; ain't I,old-timer? We're makin' a dry-camp, just like--Happy Jack. I'm arell--ole--" The Kid went to sleep before he finished saying it. Thereis nothing like the open air to make one sleep from dusk till dawn. Therell ole cowpuncher forgot his little white bed in the corner of the bigbedroom. He forgot that Doctor Dell would be awfully s'prised, and thatDaddy Chip would maybe be cross--Daddy Chip was cross, sometimes. Therell ole cowpuncher lay with his yellow curls pillowed on the bag ofdoughnuts and the gray blanket wrapped tightly around him, and sleptsoundly; and his lips were curved in the half smile that came often tohis sleeping place and made him look ever so much like his Daddy Chip.