Henty George Alfred
Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

The meals here, as at the other places where they had stopped, consisted of fried steak, which, although tough, was eatable, and abundance of potatoes and cabbages, followed by stewed fruit. They had arrived just at the dinner-hour, and seven or eight men in their shirt-sleeves came in and sat down with them. The tea was somewhat better than that they had hitherto obtained, and there was, in addition, the luxury of milk. Scarcely a word was spoken during the meal. It was evidently considered a serious business, and the chief duty of each man was to eat as much as possible in the shortest possible time. After the meal was over, and the other diners had gone out, the landlord, who had taken his seat at the top of the table, opened the conversation.

"Are you thinking of making a stay here, gentlemen?"

"Yes, if we can get any work to suit us," Luscombe said.

"It is a rising place," the landlord said as he lit his pipe. "There are two stores and eight houses being built now. This town has a great future before it." Luscombe and Hugh had some difficulty in preserving their gravity.

"It is the chief town of the county," the landlord went on. "They are going to set about the court-house in a month or two. Our sheriff is a pretty spry man, and doesn't stand nonsense. We have an orderly population, sir. We had only two men shot here last week."

"That is satisfactory," Luscombe said dryly. "We are peaceable characters ourselves. And is two about your average?"

"Well, I can't say that," the landlord said; "that would be too much to expect. The week before last Buck Harris with three of his gang came in and set up the town."

"What do you mean by set up?" Luscombe asked. The landlord looked surprised at the question.

"Oh, to set up a town is to ride into it, and to clear out the saloons, and to shoot at anyone seen outside their doors, and to ride about and fire through the windows. They had done it three or four times before, and as four or five men had been killed the citizens became annoyed."

"I am not surprised at that," Hugh put in.

"The sheriff got a few men together, and the citizens began to shoot out of their windows. Buck Harris and two of his gang were killed and four of the citizens. Since then we have had quiet. And what sort of work do you want, gentlemen? Perhaps I could put you in the way of getting it."

"Well, we wanted to get work among horses," Luscombe said.

The landlord shook his head. "You want to go further south among the big ranches for that. This is not much of a horse country. If you had been carpenters now there would have been no difficulty. A good workman can get his four dollars a-day. Then there is James Pawson's woodyard. I reckon you might get a job there. One of his hands got shot in that affair with Buck Harris, and another broke his leg last week. I should say there was room for you there. Madden, that's the man who was shot, used to board here."

"What is your charge for boarding, landlord?"

"Seventy-five cents a-day for three square meals; a dollar a-day if you lodge as well. But I could not lodge you at present. I must keep a couple of rooms for travellers, and the others are full. But you will have no difficulty in getting lodgings in the town. You can get a room for about a dollar a-week."

"Well, let us try the woodyard, Luscombe."

"All right!" Luscombe said. "There is a certain sense of novelty about a woodyard. Well, landlord, if we agree with this Mr. Pawson, we will arrange to board with you, at any rate for the present."

They went down the straggling street until they came to a lot on which was piled a quantity of sawn timber of various dimensions. The name Pawson was painted in large letters on the fence. A man and a boy were moving planks.

"Here goes!" Luscombe said, and entered the gate.

"Want a job?" the man asked, looking up as they approached him.

"Yes. We are on the look-out for a job, and heard there might be a chance here."

"I am James Pawson," the man said, "and I want hands. What wages do you want?"

"As much as we can get," Luscombe replied.

Pawson looked them up and down. "Not much accustomed to hard work, I reckon?"

"Not much," Luscombe said. "But we are both pretty strong, and ready to do our best."

"Well, I tell you what," the man said. "I will give you a dollar and a half a-day for a week, and at the end of that time, if you get through your work well, I will raise it to two dollars."

Luscombe looked at Hugh, who nodded. "All right!" he said; "we will try."

Pawson gave a sigh of relief, for hands were scarce. "Take off your coats then," he said, "and set to work right here. There is a lot to be done."

Luscombe and Hugh took off their coats, and were soon hard at work moving and piling planks. Before they had been half an hour at it there was a shout, and a waggon heavily laden with planks entered the yard. James Pawson himself jumped up on to the wagon, and assisted the teamster to throw down the planks, while the other two carried them away and stacked them. Both of them had rolled up their sleeves to have a freer use of their arms. The sun blazed hotly down, and they were soon bathed in perspiration. They stuck to their work until six o'clock, but by that time their backs were so stiff with stooping that they could scarcely stand upright, and their hands were blistered with the rough wood. Pawson was well satisfied with their work.

"Well," he said, "you move about pretty spry, you two do, and handle the wood quicker'n most. I see you will suit me if I shall suit you; so I will make it two dollars a-day at once. I ain't a man that stints half a dollar when I see hands work willing."

"Well, that is not a bad beginning, Luscombe," Hugh said as they went to put on their coats.

"We have earned a dollar, Hugh," Luscombe said, "and we have broken our backs and blistered our hands, to say nothing of losing three or four pounds of solid flesh."

"We did wrong to turn up our sleeves," Hugh said. "I had no idea that the sun was so strong. Why, my arms are a mass of blisters."

"So are mine," Luscombe said ruefully, "and they are beginning to smart furiously. They will be in a nice state to-morrow."

"Let us stay at the hotel tonight, Hugh. I feel so tired that I am sure I could never set out to look for lodgings after supper."

The next morning their arms were literally raw. Before starting to work they got some oil from the landlord and rubbed them. "It will be some time before I turn up my sleeves to work again," Luscombe said. "I have had my arms pretty bad sometimes after the first long day's row in summer, but I have never had them like this."

They worked until dinner-time, and then Luscombe went up to Pawson and pulled up his sleeve. "I think," he said, "you must let us both knock off for the day. We are really not fit to work. We daren't turn up our sleeves, and yet the flannel rubbing on them makes them smart so that we can hardly work. Besides, as you said yesterday, we are not accustomed to work. We are so stiff that we are not doing justice either to ourselves or you. If you have any particular job you want done, of course we will come after dinner and do it, but if not we would rather be off altogether."

"Your arms are bad," Pawson said. "I thought yesterday when you were working that, being new-comers, you would feel it a bit. Certainly you can knock off. You ain't fit for it as you are. Take it easy, boys, for a few days till you get accustomed to it. We ain't slave-drivers out here, and I don't expect nothing beyond what is reasonable. I should get my arms well rubbed with oil at once; then to-night wash the oil off and give them a chance to harden, and in the morning powder them well with flour."

As soon as they had had their dinner they went out and found a room with two beds in it, and moved their small kits across there. Then they took a stroll round the town, of which they had seen little, and then lay down in the shade of a thick cactus hedge and dozed all the afternoon. The next morning they felt all the better for their rest. The inflammation of their arms had greatly abated, and they were able to work briskly.

"What do you want with that revolver of an evening, Hugh, when you do not wear it during the day?" Luscombe asked as he saw Hugh put his revolver in his pocket when they went to their lodgings for a wash, after work was over for the day.

"I take off my coat during the day, Luscombe, and whatever may be the custom here I think it ridiculous to see a man at work in a woodyard with a revolver stuck into his pocket at the back of his trousers. At night it is different; the pistol is not noticed under the coat, and I don't suppose there is a man here without one."

"I think one is just as safe without a pistol," Luscombe said. "Even these rowdies would hardly shoot down an unarmed man."

"They might not if they were sober," Hugh agreed; "but most of this shooting is done when men are pretty nearly if not quite tipsy. I heard my uncle say once 'A man may not often want to have a revolver on him; when he does want a revolver he wants it pretty badly.'"

A few days later they heard at supper that three notorious ruffians had just ridden into the place. "I believe one of them is a mate of Buck Harris, who was shot here three weeks ago. I hear he has been in the bar swaggering about, and swearing that he means to wipe out every man in the place who had a hand in that business. The sheriff is away. He went out yesterday with two men to search for a fellow who murdered a man and his wife somewhere down south, and who has been seen down in the swamps of the East Fork. He may be away two or three days, worse luck. There is the under-sheriff, but he isn't much good by himself. He can fight, Gilbert can, but he never likes going into a row on his own account. He will back up the sheriff in anything he does, but he has got no head to take a thing up by himself."

"But surely," Hugh said, "people are not going to let three men terrorize the whole place and shoot and carry on just as they like."

"Well, mate, I don't suppose we like these things more than anyone else; but I can tell you that when one of the three men is Dutch Sam, and another is Wild Harvey, and the third is Black Jake, it is not the sort of business as anyone takes to kindly, seeing that if there is one thing more tarnal sartin than another, it is that each of them is good to lay out five or six men before he goes under. When things are like that one puts up with a goodish lot before one kicks. They are three as ugly men as there are anywhere along this part of Texas. Any one of them is game to set up a town by himself, and when it comes to three of them together I tell you it would be a game in which I certainly should not like to take a hand. You are new to these parts, mate, or you wouldn't talk about it so lightly. When you have been out here for a few months you will see that it is small blame to men if they get out of the way when two or three fellows like this are on the war-path."

At this moment there was a sound of shouting and yelling with a clatter of horses' hoofs outside. Then came the rapid discharge of firearms, and the three upper panes of glass in the window were pierced almost simultaneously with small round holes in the very centres. Every one bent down over their plates. The next shot might come through the second line of window panes, in which case they would have taken effect among those sitting at the table. Then there was a yell of laughter, and the horses were heard to gallop furiously away.

"That is only their fun at present," one of the men said. "It will be more serious later on when they have drunk enough to be savage."

"I don't see much fun in firing through the windows of a house," Luscombe said.

"Oh, that is nothing!" another put in. "I have seen a score of cow-boys come into a place, and half an hour afterwards there wasn't a window-pane that hadn't a round hole in its middle. They will shoot the hats off a score of men; that is one of their favourite amusements. In the first place it shows their skill with the pistol, and in the next it scares people pretty nigh to death, and I have seen the cow-boys laugh until they have nearly tumbled off their horses to see a fellow jump and make a straight line into a house. Nobody minds the cow-boys; they are a good sort. They are reckless enough when they are on a spree, but they don't really mean to do harm. They spend their money freely, and they hate ruffians like those three fellows outside. If it wasn't for cow-boys, the bad men, as we call them, would be pretty well masters of Texas. But the cow-boys hunt them down like vermin, and I have known them hang or shoot over a dozen murderers and gamblers in one afternoon. They fight among themselves sometimes pretty hard. Perhaps the men on two ranches will quarrel, and then if it happens that a party from one ranch meets a party from the other down in a town, there is sure to be trouble. I remember one battle in which there were over twenty cow-boys killed, besides six or eight citizens who happened to get in the way of their bullets."

Just as they had finished the meal a man ran in. "Have you heard the news? Dutch Sam and his party have broken open the door of the under-sheriff's house, pulled him out, and put a dozen bullets into him."

There was an exclamation of indignation. "There," Hugh said, "if the under-sheriff had done his duty and called upon every one to help him to capture or shoot these fellows as soon as they came into the town he wouldn't have lost his life, and I suppose it will have to be done after all."

"The best thing we can do," one of the men said, "is to go round from house to house and agree that every man shall take his rifle and pistol, and take his stand at a window, then we will shoot them down as they ride past."

"But that wouldn't be giving them a fair show," another objected.

"A fair show!" the other repeated scornfully. "Did they give the under-sheriff a fair show? Do you think they give notice to a man before they shoot him, and ask him to draw and be fairly 'heeled' before they draw a trigger? Not a bit of it; and I say we ought to clear them out."

There was a general expression of approval, and after one of the party had opened the door and looked out cautiously to see if the coast was clear, and reported that none of the desperadoes were in sight, the party at once scattered. Luscombe and Hugh stopped for half an hour chatting with the landlord. The latter did not believe that the people would attack the ruffians.

"If the sheriff had been here to take the lead," he said, "they might have acted; but as he is away, I don't think it likely that anyone will draw a bead upon them. You see, no one is sure of anyone else, and he knows that if he were to kill or wound one of them the others would both be upon him. If we had a regular street here with a row of houses running along each side, so that a volley could be poured into them, it would be a different thing; but you see the houses are separated, some stand back from the road, some stand forward; they are all scattered like, and I don't expect anyone will begin. They will be in here presently," he said, "and they will drink my bar pretty well dry, and I don't expect I shall get a dime for the liquor they drink; and that is not the worst of it, they are like enough to begin popping at the bottles, and smashing more than they drink."

"Well, it seems to me a disgraceful thing," Hugh said, "that a place with something like a hundred men in it should be kept down by three."

"It sounds bad if you put it that way," the landlord agreed; "but you must remember that each of these three men could hit every pip on a card twenty yards away; they each carry two revolvers, that is to say, they have got twelve men's lives in their belt, and they are so quick with their weapons that they could fire the twelve shots before an ordinary man could get out his revolver and cock it."

"Why not shut up your place for the night?" Luscombe asked. "Then they couldn't come in and drink your spirits and wreck your bar."

"They couldn't, eh? Why, they would blow the door open with their pistols, and if it was so barred they couldn't get in that way, they would like enough burn the house about my ears. I have known such things done many a time."

"Well, let us get home, Hugh," Luscombe said. "It seems to me the sooner we are quietly in bed the better. As our room is at the back of the house they may fire away as much as they like without a chance of our being hit."

Hugh put on his hat, and the two started down the street. They had gone but a short distance when the sound of a horse's hoofs was heard.

"Here is one of them!" a voice shouted from an upper window. "Run round to the back of the house, the door is open there. I have heard two or three pistol shots, and he will shoot you down to a certainty."

"Come on, Hugh," Luscombe said.

"You go round, Luscombe, you are unarmed. I am not going to run away from anyone," Hugh said doggedly. "Go on, man, it is no use your staying here, you have no pistol."

"I sha'n't leave you by yourself," Luscombe said quietly; "besides, here he comes."

Hugh's hand had already slipped round to his back, and he now had his pistol in his hand in the pocket of his coat. The horseman threw up his arm as he came along, and Hugh saw the glitter of the moonlight on a pistol barrel. Another instant the pistol cracked; but Hugh, the moment he saw it bear on him, dropped on to one knee, and the ball struck the wall just above his head. He lifted his arm and fired, while two other shots rang out from the window. The man threw up his hands and fell back over the crupper of his horse to the ground, and the well-trained animal stopped instantaneously in his gallop, and turning stood still by his side.

"Come on, Luscombe," Hugh said; "the sooner we are out of this the better."

Before, however, they had gone twenty yards they heard the sound of two horses coming up behind them.

"Let us get round the corner of that house, Luscombe. I don't suppose they will pass those men at the windows; if they do, they will be thinking of their own safety as they gallop past and won't notice us."

They had scarcely got round the corner when there was a discharge of firearms, and the reports of the rifles were followed by the quick sharp cracks of revolvers. Then a man dashed past them at a gallop. One of his arms hung by his side, and the reins were loose on the horse's neck.

"I suppose they have killed the other," Hugh said, "and this fellow is evidently hit. Well, let us go on to bed."

Luscombe did not speak until they reached their room. Hugh struck a match and lighted a candle.

"Well, you are a nice lad, Hugh," Luscombe said. "I thought you were always against quarrels, and wanted nothing but to go on with your work peaceably, and here you are throwing yourself into this and standing the chance of being shot, as if you had been fighting ruffians all your life."

"It was he attacked me," Hugh said. "I didn't fire first. I gave him no provocation, and was not going to run away when I was armed. It is you ought to be blamed, stopping there to be shot at when you had no weapon. I call it the act of a madman. Well, there is nothing more to say about it, so let us get into bed."

CHAPTER VI.
A HORSE DEAL

AFTER having been at work for a week Hugh and Luscombe found it come comparatively easy to them. Their hands had hardened, and their back and legs no longer ached with the exertion of stooping and lifting planks and beams. They had now got the yard into order: the various lengths and thicknesses of planks piled together, and also the various sized timber for the framework of the houses. Their work was now more varied. The dray had, of course, to be unloaded on its arrival from the mills and its contents stowed away, and as soon as James Pawson found that his new hands could be trusted to see after things he left them pretty much to themselves, going up himself to the mill, of which he was part owner. It now fell to them to keep an account of the out-goings, to see that the planks they handed over to purchasers were of the right lengths and thicknesses, and also to saw the wood-work of the frames for the houses into their required lengths.

All this afforded a change, and gave them an interest in their work, and they came to know a good many, not only of those living in the town, but men who were taking up ground in the neighbourhood, and who came in with their teams for planks and shingles to construct the rough houses which were to shelter them until, at any rate, they got their land under cultivation and things began to prosper. Three months after their arrival Luscombe began to show signs of getting wearied of the work. Hugh was quick to notice it.

"I can see you are getting tired of it," he said one Sunday as they started for a walk to a small ranche three miles away, whose owner had been buying wood for a cow-house, and had asked them to come over for dinner. "You didn't mean me to see it, but I know that it is so."

"I don't know that I am tired, Hugh; but I feel a restless sort of feeling."

"Well, my dear Luscombe, I don't want you to feel that you are in any way bound here on my account. We agreed that from the first, you know. It was a great thing our being together at first; but now the ice is broken we have fallen into the groove, and can either of us shoulder our kits and go where we like in search of a job. We are no longer fresh from the other side of the Atlantic."

"I shall carry out my idea of enlisting," Luscombe said. "There is a military post at Fort M'Kayett. I can strike down by road to Meridian. I can get waggons as far as that, pick up a horse for a few dollars there, and then make my way down until I strike the Colorado River, and, crossing that, bear west, stopping at cattle ranches until I get to the fort. I shall be happier as a trooper than at any other work. Of course the pay is not high, but that does not matter a rap to me; it goes further here than it does at home, and there is not much use for money out on the plains. They say the Indians are very troublesome, and there will be some excitement in the life, while here there is none. I don't like leaving you, Hugh. That is the only drawback."

"Don't let that stop you," Hugh said. "Of course I shall be very sorry when you go; but as you have your plans and I have none, it would come at any rate before long; and, as I have said, now that I have got over the feeling of strangeness, I don't suppose that I shall stay here long after you have left."

The following day Luscombe told his employer that he should leave at the end of the week.

"I am sorry you are going," he said; "but I expected that you would be on the move before long. That is the worst of it out here – nobody sticks to a job. However, I cannot blame you; you have stopped a good bit longer than they generally do. And are you going too?" he asked, turning to Hugh.

"Not just yet," Hugh replied; "but I do think of going in another week or two. You see, boss, one is not learning anything here."

"That's so. Say, would you like to go up to the mill for a bit? That is different sort of work, and, as you say, you would be learning something. One of the men jammed his hand on Saturday, and won't be fit for that kind of work for some time, so as your mate is going off at the end of the week you can go up there if you like."

Hugh gladly accepted the offer. He would have felt it very dull without Luscombe, but by going to a different sort of work he would feel his companion's departure less hardly. He would have much to learn, and be among new companions, and have much to attend to. So at the end of the week Luscombe set out upon his long journey to Fort M'Kayett, and on Monday morning Hugh started for the saw-mill at daybreak in a waggon that had come in on Saturday afternoon with timber. James Pawson had told him that he had spoken to the foreman about him, and the latter would know what to do with him. The team consisted of two fine mules in the shafts and two horses ahead.

"Climb up," the driver said. "We shall go a goodish pace till we get to the hills. That is right – hold on!"

As he cracked his whip the animals started at a trot, and presently broke into a gallop. The road was nothing but a track across the country, and Hugh held on to the seat, expecting every moment to be jerked off. The track was as hard as iron, but the passages of the waggons in wet weather had worn deep holes and ruts in it, and Hugh thought it was a miracle that the waggon did not upset and smash to pieces, as the wheels went down first on one side and then on the other, and the whole framework creaked and quivered with the shock. At the end of about three miles the animals slackened their pace, to Hugh's intense relief.

"That's just their little play," the driver said. "They know they won't get a chance again to-day, and they generally lay themselves down for a gallop where it is good going."

"Do you call that good going?" Hugh asked in astonishment.

"Sartin. Why, it is level ground, and not a water-course to go over! You don't expect a railway track, graded and levelled, do yer?"

Hugh hastened to say that he entertained no such extravagant ideas.

"This road ain't nowhere, so to speak, real bad," the driver went on; "that is, not for a hill road. I don't say as there ain't some baddish places, but nothing to what I have driven teams over."

The animals had now dropped down into a walk, although, so far as Hugh could see, the track was no worse than that which they had been hitherto following.

"The critters are just getting their breath," the driver said as he proceeded to light his pipe. "They have had their fling, and now they are settling down to the day's work. They know as well as I do what they have got before them. Don't you, Pete?"

The mule addressed lifted one of its long ears and partly turned his head round.

"They are fine mules," Hugh remarked.

"You will see bigger than them. Them's Mexicans, and they have wonderful big mules in Northern Mexico. I have seen them standing a hand higher than these. But Pete and Bob are good mules. They would be better if they were a bit heavier when it comes to a dead pull, but except for that I would as lief have them as the biggest."

"Are they better than horses?"

"Better'n horses? You bet! Why, I would rather have a pair of mules than three pair of horses. Why, for steady work and for stay and for strength there ain't no comparison between a mule and a horse. Why, that pair of mules is worth twice as much as the best pair of horses you could find in Texas, except, of course, picked horses for riding. If you pay a hundred dollars for a horse you have paid a long price in this country, but that pair of mules wouldn't be dear at eight hundred for the two of them. There is no trouble with mules: they won't stray far when you turn them out; they won't stampede – not if they are properly trained. Why, there is as much sense in a mule as there is in a score of horses, and the horses know it themselves. If there is a mule turned out among a troop of horses he takes the lead natural, and they will follow him wherever he goes, knowing right well that he has got more sense than they have. Besides, mules seem to get fond of each other, and you don't see horses do that. In a round-up the team horses will just mix up with the others. You don't see two of them keep together or have any sort of friendship; but if there are a pair of mules among the lot you will see them keep together."

"I had an idea that mules were obstinate beasts."

"I won't deny as they have their tempers sometimes, but in most cases it comes from their getting into bad hands. But treat a mule well and he will, in general, do his best. When they once find they have got a job beyond them they ain't going to break their hearts by trying to do it; and if they are treated bad when there is no call for it then they puts up their backs and won't stir another foot, and when they makes up their minds to that you may kill them and they won't do it then; but treat a mule fair and kind and there is no better beast in the world. You know all about it, Pete, don't you?" and he gave the animal a slight flick on the neck with his whip, to which it replied by throwing up its hind-quarters and giving a playful kick, which caused Hugh, whose legs were hanging down over the front of the waggon, to withdraw them hastily. "You are a rascal, Pete," the driver said. "Come, now, you have all got your winds. Just sharpen up a bit till you get among the hills."

As if they understood what he said, the mules threw their weight on the traces, broke into a slow trot, and the crack of the driver's whip woke the leaders into activity. This pace was not kept up long, for the ground had now begun to rise. They presently entered a valley between two spurs of the hills, and soon began to mount by a rough road. This became steeper and steeper, and Hugh was glad to get off and walk in front. At times the track they had to cross was bare rock, so smooth and slippery that the animals could scarcely keep their feet and drag up the waggon. Then they wound along on the side of a hill, the ground on one side being so much higher than on the other that it seemed to Hugh that a loaded waggon would infallibly topple over and go rolling down into the valley below. Sometimes they descended sharply into some lateral ravine cut by a stream, and climbed up the other side. The hills now were covered with a growth of small trees and brushwood – the larger timber had already been felled. At last the waggon turned up the bed of a stream running through a rocky gorge.

"Here we are," the driver said; and fifty yards further they came upon the saw-mill – a roughly-built structure, with a water-wheel. A low log-hut stood beside it. Beyond, the valley opened out. At the upper end its sides far up the hills were covered with trees, but the woodman's axe had already stripped the lower part of the valley of all its timber trees. A dam had been built across the stream and a leat cut to the water-wheel, which was sunk five or six feet below the level of the ground around it, and the tail-race continued nearly down to the mouth of the gorge, where the water fell again into the old bed of the stream. The wheel was revolving, and the sound of the machinery inside the mill deadened that of the mules and waggon, but a shrill whistle from the driver brought a man to the door. He nodded to Hugh. "You are the new hand the boss spoke of, I suppose? Well, Clarkson, have you brought the things we wanted?"