Being a gentle and trustworthy child he was allowed the freedom of it. He might turn the pages of the ancient album, lift the conch shells from the whatnot in the corner and listen to the imprisoned sound of the sea, climb carefully upon a chair to inspect the wax flowers and the hair wreaths framed and hanging on the walls; best of all he loved sitting on a slippery hair-cloth sofa, his eyes glued to the tiny window of the kaleidoscope, his soul warm with the joy of color and design. There was always, he remembered now, a distinct effort of his will necessary to remove his reveling eye, to take it away from crimson and jade and orange and ultramarine and deep purple, and return it to the grays and browns and drabs of the material world. And the time had come again, he told himself grimly, his head aching dully, his muscles aching sharply, to take his eye away from the kaleidoscope.
He was following Estrada into the thick of it; he was surrounded by the brown bodies; he was stifled by the brown dust which rose over him. The sun was high, now, and he had stopped being chilled, but he was miserable in so many other ways that he was not able to be thankful. He wondered dully, disgusted, why the powerful creatures, horned, capable of splendid battle, allowed themselves to be driven by a twentieth part of their number of men, herded docilely down to their death.
“Ur-r-ra, ur-r-ra, ur-rrrra!” said Estrada softly to them, “Ur-r-ra!”—and they gave way before him, backing, whirling, pawing at the earth, the bolder ones rolling their red eyes, blowing futile defiance through their dust-grimed nostrils. Now and then a couple of them, truculent, locked horns for an instant, made a little whirlpool of private strife in the brown stream, but at Estrada’s shout, his whirling quirt, his swung sombrero, they gave up; they went on again in their sacrificial procession. Estrada, what time he rode close enough to him and the steers were not bellowing too loudly, gave him bits of information. They would be loaded into the cattle cars at noon, if all went well; they would not reach San Francisco for two days or three, perhaps; yes, the railroad company was obliged to water them—Estrada really did not know exactly what the law was, but there was a law, he was comfortably sure. Yes—those were “loco” steers; the señor would do well to keep his distance from them—they might be sufficiently loco to hook his horse, and his horse, unhappily, was not entirely trustworthy. The ones with the huge and hideous swellings at the sides of their heads had “lumpy jaw”; it was hard to tell the señor exactly what caused it—a foxtail wedged between the teeth, perhaps, made the beginning. No, he shrugged, there was no cure that he had ever heard of; if it could be taken in the beginning—but it was never taken in the beginning. No, it did not hurt the meat, except that, as the señor saw, the lumpy-jawed steers were always poor; he thought—he was not certain of this, but he had heard that they went to feed the prisoners in State’s Prison. This was a very fine herd; the señorita had excellent feeding pastures; she was a remarkable judge of stock. And she was very kind, the señorita; the señor could see for himself that she allowed the cattle to go at a walk; she would not allow them to be driven with dogs or with whips. That was very kind, and it was also very sensible; dogs made them nervous and made them hurry too much; they lost profitable pounds in transit; and the packers did not like you to use whips—they made bruises on the meat. Was not the señorita a wonderful horsewoman? He himself had seen her riding after the herd, just as she was riding to-day, at the age of seven. A proud man, the father of Señorita Ginger, the old Señor Alejandro McVeagh; a proud family. He let his raven-black eyes rest upon his companion for an instant. If the señor would let himself go loose in the saddle, he would find himself riding in greater comfort.
Dean Wolcott tried it; he tried it faithfully. He was willing and eager to try anything which would alleviate his wretchedness, but there was no looseness in him anywhere. Everything was taut, shrieking with painful tension. If he leaned forward, if he leaned back, if he shifted the weight from the stirrups to the saddle, from the saddle to the stirrups, it was worse in another strained or bruised or blistered locality. He knew that his stirrups were too short but he would not dismount to change them; he doubted if he could get on again. “How many miles have we come, Estrada?” He knew they must be almost at their destination, but it would be a comfort to hear it from the Spaniard’s lips.
Estrada considered. “Oh, maybe seex mile, Señor. Maybe leetle more; maybe not so moach.”
“Then we have twelve still to go?”
“Well, we call eet eighteen mile from Dos Pozos, Señor. The time pass very queek now, Señor.”
But it seemed to the señor that no day in his life, even in the trenches, had ever been so long. It was hot, now, blazingly, glaringly hot; it was incredible that he had ever been shivering.
It would last for hours yet, this personal misery, this unendurable monotony; brown, twisting, turning bodies, tossing horns, wild eyes; ceaseless bellowing; dust—stifling, choking, blinding dust; the smell of sweating hides.
Shortly before eleven o’clock they took their lunches out of their pockets and ate, in the saddle, but at any rate they were stationary. The vaqueros held the herd, loosely, in a shallow valley where there was water for them. The neighboring ranchers rode up with Ginger and hoped heartily that Mr. Wolcott was all right after his spill, and they were cordial and kind. As a matter of fact, though he did not dream it, they were very well aware of his plight, and they were feeling a good deal of respect for his sporting endurance. The word had passed more than once, that morning—“Pretty game bird, that boy of Ginger’s!”—“Say, that feller’s not quittin’ any, is he?—sickly lookin’ as he is, too!” A couple of the older men had sharply criticized ’Rome Ojeda for putting a stranger and a guest on a horse like the red roan, and they wondered at Ginger’s permitting it.