As he raced through the gate, Bully Bill perceived the cause of the revolution of his herd. Directly in the path of the animals was a strange figure. Not the weary footsore tramp common to the trail. Not the nervy camper, applying at O Bar O for the usual donation of milk and eggs. Neither neighbour, nor Indian from Morley. Here was a clean tweed-clad Englishman, with a grip in his hand. How he had maintained his miraculous neatness after forty-four miles of tramping all of the way from Calgary cannot be explained.
Eye to eye he faced that roan steer, whose head sank loweringly, as he backed and swayed toward that moving mass behind him, all poised and paused for the charge.
Time was when the Englishman had been in another kind of a charge, but that is a different story, and France is very far away from Alberta, Canada.
As the dumbfounded cowpuncher raced wildly in his direction, the man afoot did a strange thing. Raising on high his grip in his hand, he flung it directly into the face of the roan steer. In the scattering and scampering and bellowing that ensued, it was hard to distinguish anything but dust and a vast, moving blur, as the startled herd, following the lead of the roan steer, swept headlong down the road, to where in the canyon below, the Ghost and the Bow Rivers had their junction.
From the direction of the corrals swept reinforcements, in the shape of “Hootmon,” a Scot so nicknamed by the outfit, because of his favourite explosive utterance, and Sandy, son of the O Bar O, red-haired, freckled-faced and indelibly marked by the sun above, who rode his Indian bronc with the grace and agility of a circus rider.
Into the roaring mêlée charged the yelling riders. Not with the “hobo-dude,” lying on the inner side of the barbed-wire fence, through which he had scrambled with alacrity before the roan steer had recovered from the onslaught of the grip, were the “hands” of the ranch concerned. Theirs the job to round up and steady that panic-stricken herd; to bring order out of chaos; to soothe, to beat, to drive into a regulation bunch, and safely land the cattle in the intended south field.
Half an hour later, when the last of the tired herd had passed through the south gate, when the bellowings had died down and already the leaders were taking comfort in the succulent green grass on the edges of a long slough, Bully Bill bethought him of the cause of all this extra work and delay. He released that plug of tobacco from his left cheek, spat viciously, and with vengeance in his eye, rode over to where the intruder still reclined upon the turf. Said turf was hard and dry, and tormenting flies and grasshoppers and flying ants leaped about his face and neck; but he lay stretched out full-length upon his back, staring up at the bright blue sky above him. As Bully Bill rode over, he slowly and easily raised himself to a sitting posture.
“Hi! you there!” bawled the foreman, in the overbearing voice that had earned for him his nickname. “What the hell are you squattin’ out here for? What d’ya mean by stirrin’ up all this hell of a racket? What the hell d’ya want at O Bar O?”
The stranger smiled up at him, with the sun glinting in his eyes. His expression was guileless, and the engaging ring of friendliness and reassurance in his voice caused the irate cowhand to lapse into a stunned silence, as he gaped at this curious specimen of the human family on the ground before him.
“Ch-cheerio!” said the visitor. “No harm done. I’m f-first rate, thank you. Not even scratched. How are you?”