CHAPTER VII
AT THE WATER-HOLE
Before Bartley had been riding an hour he knew that he had a good horse under him. Dobe "followed his head" and did not flirt with his shadow, although he was grain-fed and ready to go. When Dobe trotted--an easy, swinging trot that ate into the miles--Bartley tried to post, English style. But Dobe did not understand that style of riding a trot. Each time Bartley raised in the stirrups, Dobe took it for a signal to lope. Finally Bartley caught the knack of leaning forward and riding a trot with a straight leg, and to his surprise he found it was a mighty satisfactory method and much easier than posting.
The mesa trail was wide--in reality a cross-country road, so Bartley had opportunity to try Dobe's different gaits. The running walk was a joy to experience, the trot was easy, and the lope as regular and smooth as the swing of a pendulum. Finally Bartley settled to the best long-distance gait of all, the running walk, and began to enjoy the vista; the wide-sweeping, southern reaches dotted with buttes, the line of the far hills crowded against the sky, and the intense light in which there was no faintest trace of blur or moisture. Everything within normal range of vision stood out clean-edged and definite.
Unaccustomed to riding a horse that neck-reined at the merest touch, and one that stopped at the slightest tightening of the rein, Bartley had to learn through experience that a spade bit requires delicate handling. He was jogging along easily when he turned to glance back at the town--now a far, huddled group of tiny buildings. Inadvertently he tightened rein. Dobe stopped short. Bartley promptly went over the fork and slid to the ground.
Dobe gazed down at his rider curiously, ears cocked forward, as though trying to understand just what his rider meant to do next. Bartley expected to see the horse whirl and leave for home. But Dobe stood patiently until his rider had mounted. Bartley glanced round covertly, wondering if any one had witnessed his impromptu descent. Then he laughed, realizing that it was a long way to Central Park, flat saddles and snaffles.
A little later he ate two of the sandwiches Wishful had thoughtfully provided, and drank from the canteen. Gradually the shadows of the buttes lengthened. The afternoon heat ebbed away in little, infrequent puffs of wind. The western reaches of the great mesa seemed to expand, while the southern horizon drew nearer.
Presently Bartley noticed pony tracks on the road, and either side of the tracks the mark of wheels. Here the wagon had swung aside to avoid a bit of bad going, yet the tracks of two horses still kept the middle of the road. "Senator Brown--and Cheyenne," thought Bartley, studying the tracks. He became interested in them. Here, again, Cheyenne had dismounted, possibly to tighten a cinch. There was the stub of a cigarette. Farther along the tracks were lost in the rocky ground of the petrified forest. He had made twenty miles without realizing it.
Winding in and out among the shattered and fallen trunks of those prehistoric trees, Bartley forgot where he was until he passed the bluish-gray sweep of burned earth edging the forest. Presently a few dwarf junipers appeared. He was getting higher, although the mesa seemed level. Again he discovered the tracks of the horses in the powdered red clay of the road.
He crossed a shallow arroyo, sandy and wide. Later he came suddenly upon a red clay cutbank, and a hint of water where the bank shadowed the mud-smeared rocks. He rode slowly, preoccupied in studying the country. The sun showed close to the rim of the world when he finally realized that, if he meant to get anywhere, he had better be about it. Dobe promptly caught the change of his rider's mental attitude and stepped out briskly. Bartley patted the horse's neck.
It was a pleasure to ride an animal that seemed to want to work with a man and not against him. The horse had cost one hundred dollars--a fair price for such a horse in those days. Yet Bartley thought it a very reasonable price. And he knew he had a bargain. He felt clearly confident that the big cow-pony would serve him in any circumstance or hazard.
As a long, undulating stretch of road appeared, softly brown in the shadows, Bartley began to look about for the water-hole which Wishful had spoken about. The sun slipped from sight. The dim, gray road reached on and on, shortening in perspective as the quick night swept down.
Beyond and about was a dusky wall through which loomed queer shapes that seemed to move and change until, approached, they became junipers. Bartley's gaze became fixed upon the road. That, at least, was a reality. He reached back and untied his coat and swung into it. An early star flared over the southern hills. He wondered if he had passed the water-hole. He had a canteen, but Dobe would need water. But Dobe was thoroughly familiar with the trail from Antelope to the White Hills. And Dobe smelled the presence of his kind, even while Bartley, peering ahead in the dusk, rode on, not aware that some one was camped within calling distance of the trail. A cluster of junipers hid the faint glow of the camp-fire.
Dobe stopped suddenly. Bartley urged him on. For the first time the big horse showed an inclination to ignore the rein. Bartley gazed round, saw nothing in particular, and spoke to the horse, urging him forward. Dobe turned and marched deliberately away from the road, heading toward the west, and nickered. From behind the screen of junipers came an answering nicker. Bartley hallooed. No one answered him. Yet Dobe seemed to know what he was about. He plodded on, down a slight grade. Suddenly the soft glow of a camp-fire illumined the hollow.
A blanket-roll, a saddle, a coil of rope, and a battered canteen and the fire--but no habitant of the camp.
"Hello!" shouted Bartley.
Dobe shied and snorted as a figure loomed in the dusk, and Cheyenne was peering up at him.
"Is this the water-hole?" Bartley asked inanely.
"This is her. I'm sure glad to see you! I feel like a plumb fool for standin' you up that way--but I didn't quite get you till I seen your face. I thought I knowed your voice, but I never did see you in jeans, and ridin' a hoss before. And that hat ain't like the one you wore in Antelope."
"Then you didn't know just what to expect?"
"I wa'n't sure. But say, I got some coffee goin'--and some bacon. Light down and give your saddle a rest."
"I'll just water my horse and stake him out and--"
"I'll show you where. I see you're ridin' Dobe. Wishful rent him to you?"
"No. I bought him."
"If you don't mind tellin' me--how much?"
"Was Wishful drunk?"
"No."
"Well, you got a real hoss, there. The water is right close. Old Dobe knows where it is. Just lift off your saddle and turn him loose--or mebby you better hobble him the first night. He ain't used to travelin' with you, yet."
"I have a stake-rope," said Bartley.
"A hoss would starve on a stake-rope out here. I'll make you a pair of hobbles, pronto. Then he'll stick with my hosses."
"Where are they?"
"Runnin' around out there somewhere. They never stray far from camp."
Bartley watched Cheyenne untwist a piece of soft rope and make a pair of serviceable hobbles.
"Now he'll travel easy and git enough grass to keep him in shape. And them hobbles won't burn him. Any time you're shy of hobbles, that's how to make 'em."
Later, as Bartley sat by the fire and ate, Cheyenne asked him if Panhandle had been seen in town since the night of the crap game. Bartley told him that he had seen nothing of Panhandle.
"He's ridin' this country, somewhere," said Cheyenne. "You're headed for Steve's ranch?"
"Yes."
"Well, Steve'll sure give you the time of your life."
"I think I'll stay there a few days, if the Senator can make room for me."
"Room! Wait till you see Steve's place. And say, if you want to get wise to how they run a cattle outfit, just throw in with the boys, tell 'em you're a plumb tenderfoot and can't ride a bronc, nohow, and that you never took down a rope in your life, and that all you know about cattle is what you've et, and then the boys will use you white. There's nothin' puts a fella in wrong with the boys quicker than for him to let on he is a hand when he ain't. 'Course the boys won't mind seem' you top a bronc and get throwed, just to see if you got sand."
Meanwhile Cheyenne manipulated the coffee-pot and skillet most effectively. And while Bartley ate his supper, Cheyenne talked, seemingly glad to have a companion to talk to.
"You see," he began, apropos of nothing in particular, "entertainin' folks with the latest news is my long suit. I'm kind of a travelin' show, singin' and packin' the news around to everybody. 'Course folks read the paper and hear about somebody gettin' married, or gettin' shot or leavin' the country, and then they ask me the how of it. I been ramblin' so long that I know the pedigrees of 'most everybody down this way.
"Newspapers is all right, but folks get plumb hungry to git their news with human trimmin's. I recollec' I come mighty near gettin' in trouble, onct. Steve had some folks visitin' down to his ranch. They was new to the country, and seems they locked horns with a outfit runnin' sheep just south of Springerville. Now, I hadn't been down that way for about six months, but I had heard of that ruckus. So after Steve lets me sing a couple of songs, and I got to feelin' comfortable with them new folks, I set to and tells 'em about the ruckus down near Springerville. I guess the fella that told me must 'a' got his reins crossed, for pretty soon Steve starts to laugh and turns to them visitors and says: 'How about it, Mr. Smith?'
"Now, Smith was the fella that had the ruckus, and I'd been tellin' how that sheep outfit had run him out of the country. He was a young, long, spindlin' hombre from Texas--a reg'lar Whicker-bill, with that drawlin' kind of a voice that hosses and folks listen to. I knowed he was from Texas the minute I seen him, but I sure didn't know he was the man I was talkin' about.
"Everybody laughed but him and his wife. I reckon she was feelin' her oats, visitin' at the Senator's house. I don't know what she said to her husband, but, anyhow, afore I left for the bunk-house that evenin', he says, slow and easy, that if I was around there next mornin', he would explain all about that ruckus to me, when the ladies weren't present, so I wouldn't get it wrong, next time. I seen I had made a mistake for myself, and I didn't aim to make another, so I just kind of eased off and faded away, bushin' down that night a far piece from Senator Steve's ranch. I know them Whicker-bills and I didn't want to tangle with any of 'em."
"Afraid you'd get shot?" queried Bartley, laughing.
"Shot? Me? No, pardner. I was afraid that Texas gent would get shot. You see, he was married--and I--ain't."
Bartley lay back on his saddle and gazed up at the stars. The little fire had died down to a dot of red. A coyote yelped in the far dusk. Another coyote replied. Cheyenne rose and threw some wood on the fire. Then he stepped down to the water-hole and washed the plates and cups. Bartley could hear the peculiar thumping sound of hobbled horses moving about on the mesa. Cheyenne returned to the fire, picked up his bed-roll, and marched off into the bushes. Bartley wondered why he should take the trouble to move his bed-roll such a distance from the water-hole.
"Pack your saddle and blanket over, when you feel like turnin' in," said Cheyenne. "And you might throw some dirt on that fire. I ain't lookin' for visitors down this way, but you can't tell."
Bartley carried his saddle out to the distant clump of junipers.
"Just shed your coat and boots and turn in," invited Cheyenne.
Bartley was not sleepy, and for a long time he lay gazing up at the stars. Presently he heard Cheyenne snore. The Big Dipper grew dim. Then a coyote yelped--a shrill cadence of mocking laughter. "I wonder what the joke is?" Bartley thought drowsily.
Sometime during the night he was awakened by the tramping of horses, a sound that ran along the ground and diminished in the distance.
Cheyenne was sitting up. He touched Bartley. "Five or six of 'em," whispered Cheyenne.
"Too many. Mebby some strays."
"Or cowboys," suggested Bartley.
"Night-ridin' ain't so popular out here."
Bartley turned over and fell asleep. It seemed but a moment later that he was wide awake and Cheyenne was standing over him. It was daylight.
"They got our hosses," said Cheyenne.
"Who?"
"I dunno."
"What? Our horses? Great Scott, how far is it to Senator Brown's ranch?"
"About twenty-five miles, by road. I know a short cut."
Bartley jumped up and pulled on his boots. From the far hills came the faint yelp of a coyote, shrill and derisive.
"The joke is on us," said Bartley.
"This here ain't no joke," stated Cheyenne.