PETE'S B'OTHER-IN-LAW
On the Arrowhead Ranch it was noon by the bell that Lew Wee loves to clang. It may have been half an hour earlier or later on other ranches, for Lew Wee is no petty precisian. Ma Pettengill had ridden off at dawn; and, rather than eat luncheon in solitary state, I joined her retainers for the meal in the big kitchen, which is one of my prized privileges. A dozen of us sat at the long oilcloth-covered table and assuaged the more urgent pangs of hunger in a haste that was speechless and far from hygienic. No man of us chewed the new beef a proper number of times; he swallowed intently and reached for more. It was rather like twenty minutes for dinner at what our railway laureates call an eating house. Lew Wee shuffled in bored nonchalance between range and table. It was an old story to him.
The meal might have gone to a silent end, though moderating in pace; but we had with us to-day—as a toastmaster will put it—the young veterinary from Spokane. This made for talk after actual starvation had been averted—fragmentary gossip of the great city; of neighbouring ranches in the valley, where professional duty had called him; of Adolph, our milk-strain Durham bull, whose indisposition had brought him several times to Arrowhead; and then of Squat, our youngest cowboy, from whose fair brow the intrepid veterinary, on his last previous visit, had removed a sizable and embarrassing wen with what looked to me like a pair of pruning shears.
The feat had excited much uncheerful comment among Squat's confrères, bets being freely offered that he would be disfigured for life, even if he survived; and what was the sense of monkeying with a thing like that when you could pull your hat down over it? Of course you couldn't wear a derby with it; but no one but a darned town dude would ever want to wear a derby hat, anyway, and the trouble with Squat was, he wished to be pretty. It was dollars to doughnuts the thing would come right back again, twice as big as ever, and better well enough alone. But Squat, who is also known as Timberline, and is, therefore, a lanky six feet three, is young and sensitive and hopeful, and the veterinary is a matchless optimist; and the thing had been brought to a happy conclusion.
Squat, being now warmly urged, blushingly turned his head from side to side that all might remark how neatly his scar had healed. The veterinary said it had healed by first intention; that it was as pretty a job as he'd ever done on man or beast; and that Squat would be more of a hit then ever with the ladies because of this interesting chapter in his young life. Then something like envy shone in the eyes of those who had lately disparaged Squat for presuming to thwart the will of God; I detected in more than one man there the secret wish that he had something for this ardent expert to eliminate. Squat continued to blush pleasurably and to bolt his food until another topic diverted this entirely respectful attention from him. The veterinary asked if we had heard about the Indian ruction down at Kulanche last night—Kulanche Springs being the only pretense to a town between our ranch and Red Gap—a post-office, three general stores, a score of dwellings, and a low drinking place known as The Swede's. The news had not come to us; so the veterinary obliged. A dozen Indians, drifting into the valley for the haying about to begin, had tarried near Kulanche and bought whiskey of the Swede. The selling of this was a lawless proceeding and the consumption of it by the purchasers had been hazardous in the extreme. Briefly, the result had been what is called in newspaper headlines a stabbing affray. I quote from our guest's recital:
"Then, after they got calmed down and hid their knives, and it looked peaceful again, they decided to start all over; but the liquor was out, so that old scar-faced Pyann jumps on a pony and rides over from the camp for a fresh supply. He pulled up out in front of the Swede's and yelled for three bottles to be brought out to him, pronto! If he'd sneaked round to the back door and whispered he'd have got it all right, but this was a little too brash, because there were about a dozen men in the bar and the Swede was afraid to sell an Injin whiskey so openly. All he could do was go to the door and tell this pickled aborigine that he never sold whiskey to Injins and to get the hell out of there! Pyann called the Swede a liar and some other things, mentioning dates, and started to climb off his pony, very ugly.
"The Swede wasn't going to argue about it, because we'd all come out in front to listen; so he pulled his gun and let it off over Pyann's head; and a couple of the boys did the same thing, and that started the rest—about six others had guns—till it sounded like a bunch of giant crackers going off. Old Pyann left in haste, all right. He was flattened out on his pony till he looked like a plaster.
"We didn't hear any more of him last night, but coming up here this morning I found out he'd done a regular Paul Revere ride to save his people; he rode clear up as far as that last camp, just below here, on your place, yelling to every Injin he passed that they'd better take to the brush, because the whites had broken out at Kulanche. At that, the Swede ought to be sent up, knowing they'll fight every time he sells them whiskey. Two of these last night were bad cut in this rumpus."
"Yes; and he'd ought to be sent up for life for selling it to white men, too—the kind he sells." This was Sandy Sawtelle, speaking as one who knew and with every sign of conviction. "It sure is enterprising whiskey. Three drinks of it make a decent man want to kill his little golden-haired baby sister with an axe. Say, here's a good one—lemme tell you! I remember the first time, about three, four years ago—"
The speaker was interrupted—it seemed to me with intentional rudeness. One man hurriedly wished to know who did the cutting last night; another, if the wounded would recover; and a third, if Pete, an aged red vassal of our own ranch, had been involved. Each of the three flashed a bored glance at Sandy as he again tried for speech: