CHAPTER II. TOO MUCH MISERY.
“Ed, I’m through!” Ranger Cushman tossed his hat onto the pine table where Pat O’Neill had whistled softly over the making of his maps, and where he whistled no more now that the job was beautifully finished. O’Neill was now waiting around the office with an expectant, eager look in his eyes which Murray had studiously ignored while he pondered the problem of keeping the happy Irishman busy.
“Huh! What’s the trouble now? Cushman, I want you to meet Pat O’Neill; been making maps; part of the office force now. Well, what’s wrong with the Stillwater District this time?”
“Ain’t this time, Ed. It’s all the time, and I’m darned good and tired of it. Man was not born to stand the grief I’ve stood with them wild cats. I’m goin’ back to the peaceful life of roughin’ broncs for a livin’. Why, them coyotes over on the Stillwater are so poison mean they won’t even speak to each other, except when they call a convention to devise ways and means of dealin’ me misery, and old Boyce is chairman of the committee.
“They’ve cut the wires on my pasture fence every night for a month, so every time I want a horse I got to wrangle him afoot. They steal my grub. I ride day an’ night, hazin’ cattle off the reserve, and they drive ’em on faster than I can drive ’em off. Why, even the sheepmen are gettin’ gay! Found two bands of sheep on the reserve, last week, over Trout Creek way. Killed a few sheep and took a shot at the herder, but that won’t stop ’em. They’ll keep a-comin’, now they’ve started.
“Another thing: Them darn timber pirates on Blind Bridger Creek are cuttin’ everything they come to, regardless. Ed, it’d take a hull regiment of rangers with a Gatlin’ gun apiece to keep that country straight! Why, damn it, some of the cowmen even went so far as to hint I was in on the rustlin’ that’s goin’ on over there. If there’s any brand of cussedness they ain’t been up to, they’ll think it up while I’m gone. You can save your breath, Ed. This time you can’t talk me into goin’ back. I’m through! Ab-so-lutely, eternally through!”
“Huh! Guess I’ll have to take your word for it, Cushman. This makes the third time you’ve come in here bellerin’ that you’ve quit the Stillwater.” He whirled his chair around and glared hard at Pat O’Neill, who was making a map case of his own invention. “Now, what’re you lickin’ your chops for, like a dog watchin’ a Christmas dinner? Think there’s a turkey leg comin’ to you outa this?”
“Oh, doctor, but it listens sweet to my fightin’ Irish ears, Mr. Murray!” Pat O’Neill retorted, with the faintest hint of a brogue in his voice.
“Huh! Think I’d give you the best ranger station in the Northwest? Good, three-room log house, good barn, plenty of corrals, thirty acres of alfalfa under ditch and over two hundred acres of good pasture land fenced with a four-wire fence——”
“Cut in two or three places every night,” Ranger Cushman dourly interjected.