"About a week ago; been looking for some horses that are missing."
"Jack, shake hands with Cal Wagner. No, not the minstrel man, but his equal just the same."
"Cal, this is 'Happy Jack' of the Bar E Ranch over in the Grand River country."
Both men, thus introduced, shook hands, and after a few exchanges of the day "Happy Jack" coiled up his lariat and, lifting his bridle reins, said, "I must look around this camp a while afore the races. May find some signs, but I'll see yer both again—adios."
The spurs jingled and his pony loped off toward the valley. Cal looked at the disappearing cow-puncher and turned to Jack, who said:
"He's as good one as ever straddled a broncho. He sure is a character and his name is well earned. One of the happiest men I ever met. I'll tell you about him as we take a smoke and watch the Indians. Down on Roaring Forks of the Grand River a young fellow from the east by the name of Eads took up a ranch. He was staked by some rich relative, and after buying a bunch of steers and some American-bred horses, drove them over the Tennessee pass to the Bar E ranch, five miles above the big Hot Springs[A] where the Forks empties into the Grand. He hired 'Happy Jack' as boss of the outfit, and with two or three other cow-punchers he started in and built a log house, and when I was there seemed to be doing well. I was on a hunting trip from Middle Park and heard about the Bar E ranch and the Springs, so our party made the place our camping ground for a week. The grass was fine and all the stock rolling fat. His horses were in two bands—one 'used' on one side of the Forks and the other band grazed on the opposite side. They rounded up the horses once a week at least, and the range riders never let the stock get away very far.
"One evening just after grub one of the boys came down to the cabin from the corral and said, 'Old Martha has pulled her picket pin and vamoosed.' 'Martha' was stake mare. Jack said, 'I guess not,' and bolted up the bank to the open bench which run for half a mile back to the cedars and piñons, where the branding pens and corrals were. He walked out to where he had picketed the mare and pulled up the pin with about ten feet of rope left where it had been cut. It was just before sundown, and a bunch of horses which had been run into the corral when the stake horse was changed had not gotten far away. Jack yelled 'Thief!' and for the boys to hustle and see if some of the bunch could be gotten back into the corral—a feat, you know, next to impossible when no one is mounted. As luck would have it, four went in when the rest broke, but we managed to get the bars up before they turned. It was but a few seconds' work to rope a 'saddle-wise' one and cinch him up. Jack had taken off his belt and it lay on the ground with his six-shooters back at the cabin. He pointed at mine and said, 'Give me that gun.' Throwing himself into the saddle, he was off like a streak of lightning. The mare's hoofprints were plainly visible in the trail leading toward the Grand River. About 9:30 o'clock we heard a yell and went up to the corral. Jack had the mare. Not a word was uttered, except 'She was in the middle of the ford just above where the Forks go into the Grand.' Both horses were covered with ridges of dry sweat and looked jaded, as though every inch of ten miles had been run in a death-race struggle. On the off side of 'Martha' a dirty red streak mingled with the sweat. As we went slowly back to the cabin, after picketing both horses, Jack handed me my belt and gun—a Colt's .41 double action. Two empty cartridge shells told the story of a tragedy. A week later one of our party found the body of a man on the bank of the Grand five miles below the Forks with two bullet holes in his back.
"Jack had one habit that city boys think belong to themselves"—
"Midnight lunches?" asked Cal.
"Yes; but Jack generally had his hungry spell about 2 a. m. Every night that our party was at the Bar E ranch Jack would wake us up and every one had to 'break bread' with him—only it was flapjacks instead of bread. Jack would do all the work, and he was an artist with the frying pan. He would turn those big cakes by tossing them out of the pan in the air, you know, and catch them after the flop. After our lunch a smoke, and while we smoked a few deals of Spanish monte and a story or two, then back to bunks. Yes, 'Happy Jack' is a character."