“Old Hartley saw ’em first. The sight of that big bunch of longhorns on what he called his land made him see red, I reckon. He shoved the lever of his gun forward and back, clickity-click, and started on a run for the bunch, hollerin’ as he went: ‘You can’t drive them cattle across my flat! I’ll kill you, by God, if you do!’
“Peek-a-Boo stuck the spurs in his horse, and started after him, callin’ to him to keep away from the herd. Hartley kept a-goin’ till Peek was about twenty feet from him, then he whirled with his gun to his shoulder, and cut loose, bang—bang! and Peek-a-Boo tumbled off his horse.
“Things happened then. Stella had started after the old man, but Hash-Knife grabbed her and made her stop. When old Hartley dropped Peek-a-Boo, Bob says to me: ‘Mormon, take Stella over to camp. I got to get Peek out of there. Maybe he aint killed, and them steers’ll be a-runnin’ over him in about ten seconds.’
“Hash-Knife had the situation sized up correct. I helped Stella onto her horse and started for the wagons. A lot of riders come like hell across the flat toward the herd, but they was too late to do any good. Just as Hash-Knife picked old Peek-a-Boo up and flopped him across his horse, Hartley begin to smoke up the two riders that was holdin’ the herd—which was bunched tight, ready to run. But he missed first shot, and when he fired the second time they was scuddin’ for the tail-end of the herd, layin’ low along the backs of their horses. As they run they jerked the slickers off the backs of their saddles, swingin’ ’em round their heads, and, yellin’ like Gros Ventre braves strikin’ the war-post, they rode into the herd.
“When them cattle surged first one way and then the other, and then swept across the flat, tramplin’ old Hartley down like he was a lone stalk of bunch-grass stickin’ up out of the prairie, Stella screeched and hid her face in her hands. But I watched; it was horrible and fascinatin’. You’ve seen the ice gorge in the Big Muddy, when it breaks up in the spring; it jams at some narrow place and piles up and piles up till the river below is bone dry. Then the weight of the water’ll bust the jam and there’ll be a grindin’, smashin’ uproar for a minute, and all of a sudden the river is flowin’ peaceful again.
“That was the way them cattle did. They passed over old Hartley like he was nothin’, and struck that bunch of slumberin’ sheep like a breakin’ ice jam. Two thousand strong they was, runnin’ like scared antelope, packed shoulder to shoulder, with horns and hoofs clatterin’ like a Spanish dancer’s castanets, and the gallopin’ weight of ’em made the flat tremble. This wise they passed over the band of sheep, wipin’ ’em out like the spring floods wipe out the snow in the low places, and thunderin’ by the round-up camp hit the creek with a rush that knocked it dry for a hundred yards. The lead of ’em had hardly got to the level before the riders was turnin’ ’em. In fifteen minutes them cattle was standin’ bunched on the flat, puffin’ and blowin’, the big steers starin’ round as if they were wonderin’ what had scared ’em. But they’d done the trick. There was no sheep left to quarrel over—nary one. It was an Alamo for the woolly-backs!
“After we’d found and buried what was left of old man Hartley, we moved up the creek to camp. The herder and the pilgrim hit the trail for Milk River. Poor little Stella sure felt bad on account of the old man, and the boys was all sorry for her. But she had Hash-Knife, and Peek-a-Boo—who wasn’t hurt bad enough to make him cash in—said he’d brand a hundred calves for her on the spring round-up. So I guess she was winner on the deal.
“That’s been eleven years,” Mormon Jack concluded, reminiscently, “and I aint been here since. I didn’t make no protracted visit the first time, but I want to tell you, m’ son, it was sure excitin’.”
THE COLONEL AND “THE LADY”
By Kathleen Thompson