And then there was nothing to do but ride ahead of the toiling beasts and again down the narrow way that would bring us to the lowlands of the Arrowhead, where the dust no longer choked and one could see green and smell water. From the last mesa we looked out over the Arrowhead's flat fields, six thousand acres under fence, with the ranch house and outbuildings hazy in the distance.
It was a pleasant prospect and warmed Ma Pettengill from her mood of chill negation. She remarked upon the goodliness of the scene, quite as if the present were not a technical year for cattle raisers. Then, as we jogged the six miles home by peaceful thoroughfares, the lady, being questioned persistently and suitably, spoke with utter freedom of Homer Gale, who had shamefully deserted his job for two days at the busiest end of the season, when a white man wouldn't of thought of leaving, even on a matter of life and death.
Had Homer the shadow of an excuse? We shall see.
Well, then, this here celluloid imitation of a cowman that I been using violent words about come into the valley three years ago and rapidly got a lot of fame by reason of being a confirmed bachelor and hating the young of the human species with bitterness and constancy. I was the one that brought him in; I admit that. First time I seen him he was being a roistering blade in the Fashion Waffle Kitchen down at Red Gap. He was with Sandy Sawtelle and a couple other boys from the ranch here, and Sandy tells me later that he is looking for work, being a good cowhand. I said he looked like something else, being dressed in an uproarious check suit of clothes that would instantly of collected a crowd in most city streets. But Sandy says that's all right; he's a regler cowman and had to wear these startling garments for a disguise to get him safe out of Idaho.
It seems he'd been crowded out of that thriving state by a yearning and determined milliner that had witnesses a-plenty and intended to do something about it. Defendant claimed he hadn't even meant anything of the sort and was just being a good pal; but it looked like the cruel teeth of the law was going to bite right into his savings if this breach-of-promise suit ever come to trial, the lady having letters from him in black and white. So Homer had made a strategic retreat, avoiding contact with the enemy, and here he was. And how about taking him on at the Arrowhead, where he could begin a new life?
Needing another hand just then, I fussed none at all about Homer's scandalous past. I said he could throw in with us; and he did. When he got dressed in a legal manner he looked like he couldn't be anything else but a cowhand. About forty and reliable, he looked. So I sent him to a summer camp over on the Madeline plains, where I had a bunch of cattle on government range. Bert Glasgow lived in a shack with his wife and family there and had general charge, and Homer was to begin his new life by helping Bert.
His new life threatened to be short. He showed up here late the third night after he went over, looking sad and desperate and hunted. He did look that way more or less at all times, having one of these long, sad moustaches and a kind of a bit-into face. This night he looked worse than usual. I thought the hellhounds of the law from Idaho might of took up his winding trail; but no. It was the rosy-cheeked tots of Mr. and Mrs. Bert Glasgow that had sent him out into the night.
"Say," he says, "I wouldn't have you think I was a quitter, but if you want to suicide me just send me back to that horrible place. Children!" he says. "That's all; just children! Dozens of 'em! Running all over the place, into everything, under everything, climbing up on you, sticking their fingers into your eyes—making life unbearable for man and beast. You never once let on to me," he says reproachfully, "that this Bert had children."
"No," I says; "and I never let on to you that he's got a mole on his chin either. What of that?"
Then the poor lollop tries to tell me what of it. I saw he really had been under a nervous strain, all right. Suffering had put its hot iron on him. First, he just naturally loathed children anyway. Hadn't he run away from a good home in Iowa when he was sixteen, account of being the oldest of seven? He said some things in general about children that would of got him no applause at a mothers' meeting. He was simply afraid to look a child in the eye; and, from what he'd like to do to 'em all, it seemed like his real middle name was Molech. Wasn't that the party with hostile views about children? Anyway, you could see that Homer's idea of a real swell festivity would be to hide out by an orphan asylum some night until the little ones had said their prayers and was tucked all peaceful into their trundle beds and then set fire to the edifice in eight places after disconnecting the fire alarm. That was Homer, and he was honest; he just couldn't help it.