Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan "Outlaw" and Other Stories

by Will C. Barnes

At the first sign of coming day he set about his preparations for leaving. First, he tore from its pins the light tent, spread it out on the ground, swept into it the small supply of food which the camp contained, and rolled the tent about it. Then, with a short-handled camp shovel he dug a shallow hole in the soft mountain soil into which he placed, first, the sheepskins and blankets which formed his bed and then the bundle of the tent, covering it all with the dirt, thus securing it from the fire.

Having thus protected his food supply, he sent the dog around the sheep to bunch them up and started them up the mountainside. The sheep, frightened by the smoke and approaching fire, moved rapidly, and inside of half an hour the boy had them all bedded down on a great bare granite field in the middle of a little boulder-strewn valley where, ages ago, some slipping, sliding glacier had smoothed and polished the surface of the rocks until they were like some gigantic table top. The valley was far above timber and the sheep safe from fire.

Leaving the dog to watch the sheep, he hastened back to the meadow, there to await the coming of the patron as he had been bidden. Once upon the prairie, where his father lived, he had seen the men go out to meet an approaching fire and by means of back firing keep it away from the houses and fields.

In the camp was a stick of pitch pine which some one had brought for starting fires. Taking the ax, he quickly split off a handful of splinters, which he bound together with a handy piece of baling wire. Going to the lower end of the meadow toward the fire with his improvised torch, he started a line of small fires, hoping they would spread and thus be some slight protection to the meadow.

The wind favored him, and in a short time he had a wide swath burned clear along one side of the meadow and his fire was eating out into the forest and would keep the flames back some distance.

As the main fire line came along he was smothered with the clouds of smoke and waves of heat which swept down as from a furnace. He stood it as long as he could, fighting back the fire at every point where the flames were eating out into the meadow. Burning brands ate holes in his cotton shirt, and the soles of his "teguas," or rawhide moccasins, were burned through and through. As the mass of fire reached his back-fire line he ran to the little spring in the middle of the meadow and threw himself into it, rolling over and over in the mud and water about it. The coyotes and wildcat that had taken refuge there hardly noticed his presence in the face of the coming danger.

Half an hour or more of stifling smoke and burning heat and he dared to leave his place in the spring. About the meadow some of the trees were burning clear to their tops, and great logs were blazing everywhere, but the force of the fire was spent and had gone on past him and he was left as on an island in midocean.

It was far past noon. Perhaps the patron would come today. He found the shovel and dug up the buried tent with its precious contents and made a hasty meal of bread and meat. Then, taking a piece of the meat for the faithful Pancho, he struck out into the blackened area about him to find the sheep which he had left to the dog's care that morning.

He was very tired and his almost bare feet were badly cut and burned, causing him to stop and rest frequently, but he finally reached the granite ledge, and there found the sheep, with the dog watching their every movement, and woe unto the ewe or venturesome lamb that attempted to wander too far into the valley, for he was at its heels in a minute to drive it back.

That evening, about dark, two men rode into the upper end of the meadow. The face of each was black and grimy with smoke and sweat. Their eyes were red and swollen and their horses so tired they stumbled as they moved. As they came out of the blackened area about the meadow and were able to see across it the man in advance stopped his horse.