Partners of Chance. Henry Herbert Knibbs
grinned and wagged his tail. He pushed up and suddenly licked Little Jim's face. Little Jim promptly cuffed him. Smiler came back for more.
Big Jim turned and watched the boy and the dog in their rough-and-tumble about the yard. He blinked and turned back to the horses. "Come on, Jimmy. We're all set."
"Got to throw my pack on ole Lazy, dad. Gimme a hand, will you?"
Little Jim never would admit that he could not do anything there was to be done. When he was stuck he simply asked his father to help him.
Big Jim slung up the small pack and drew down the hitch. Little Jim ducked under Lazy and took the rope on the other side, passing the end to his father.
"Reckon that pack'll ride all right," said the boy, surveying the outfit. "Got the morrals and everything, dad?"
"All set, Jimmy."
"Then let's go. I got my ole twenty-two loaded. If we run on to one of them stingin' lizards, he's sure a sconer. Does dogs eat lizards?"
Big Jim swung to the saddle and hazed the old pack-horse ahead. "Don't know, Jimmy. Sometimes the Indians eat them."
"Eat stingin' lizards?"
"Yep."
"Well, I guess Smiler can, then. Come on, ole-timer!"
Suddenly Little Jim thought of his mother. It seemed that she ought to be with them. Little Jim had wept when Smiler was in question. Now he gazed with clear-eyed faith at his father.
"It ain't our fault ma ain't goin' with us, is it?" he queried timidly.
Big Jim shrugged his shoulders.
"Say, dad, we're headed west. Thought you said we was goin' to Arizona?"
"We'll turn south, after a while."
Little Jim asked no more questions. His father knew everything--why they were going and where. Little Jim glanced back to where Smiler padded along, his tongue out and his eyes already rimmed with dust, for he would insist upon traveling tight to Lazy's heels.
Little Jim leaned back. "Stick it out, ole-timer! But don't you go to cuttin' dad's trail till he gets kind of used to seein' you around. Sabe?"
Smiler grinned through a dust-begrimed countenance. He wagged his tail.
Little Jim plunked his horse in the ribs and drew up beside his father. Little Jim felt big and important riding beside his dad. There had been some kind of trouble at home--and they were leaving it behind. It would be a long trail, and his father sure would need help.
Little Jim drew a deep breath. He wanted to express his unwavering loyalty to his father. He wanted to talk of his willingness to go anywhere and share any kind of luck. But his resolve to speak evaporated in a sigh of satisfaction. This was a real holiday, an adventure. "Smiler's makin' it fine, dad."
But Big Jim did not seem to hear. He was gazing ahead, where in the distance loomed an approaching figure on horseback. Little Jim knew who it was, and was about to say so when his father checked him with a gesture. Little Jim saw his father shift his belt round so that his gun hung handy. He said nothing and showed by no other sign that he had recognized the approaching rider, who came on swiftly, his high-headed pinto fighting the bit.
Within twenty yards of them, the rider reined his horse to a walk. Little Jim saw the two men eye each other closely. The man on the pinto rode past. Little Jim turned to his father.
"I guess Panhandle is goin' to town," said the boy, not knowing just what to say, yet feeling that the occasion called for some remark.
"Panhandle" Sears and his father knew each other. They had passed on the road, neither speaking to the other. And Little Jim was not blind to the significant movement of shifting a belt that a gun might hang ready to hand.
Yet he soon forgot the incident in visioning the future. Arizona, Aunt Jane, and stingin' lizards!
Big Jim rode with head bowed. He was thinking of the man who had just passed them. If it had not been for the boy, Big Jim and that man would have had it out, there on the road. And Jenny Hastings would have been the cause of their quarrel. "Panhandle" Sears had "kept company" with Jenny before she became Big Jim's wife. Now that she had left him--
Big Jim turned and gazed back along the road. A far-away cloud of dust rolled toward the distant town of Laramie.
CHAPTER III
A MINUTE TOO LATE
The Overland, westbound, was late. Nevertheless, it had to stop at Antelope, but it did so grudgingly and left with a snort of disdain for the cow-town of the high mesa. Curious-eyed tourists had a brief glimpse of a loading-chute, cattle-pens, a puncher or two, and an Indian freighter's wagon just pulling in from the spaces, and accompanied by a plodding cavalcade of outriders on paint ponies.
Incidentally the westbound left one of those momentarily interested Easterners on the station platform, without baggage, sense of direction, or companion. He had stepped off the train to send a telegram to a friend in California. He discovered that he had left his address book in his grip. Meanwhile the train had moved forward some sixty yards, to take water. Returning for his address book, he boarded the wrong Pullman, realized his mistake, and hastened on through to his car. Out to the station again--delay in getting the attention of the telegraph operator, the wire finally written--and the Easterner heard the rumble of the train as it pulled out.
Even then he would have made it had it not been for a portly individual in shirt-sleeves who inadvertently blocked the doorway of the telegraph office. Bartley bumped into this portly person, tried to squeeze past, did so, and promptly caromed off the station agent whom he met head on, halfway across the platform. Gazing at the departing train, Bartley reached in his pocket for a cigar which he lighted casually.
The portly individual touched him on the shoulder. "'Nother one, this afternoon."
"Thanks. But my baggage is on that one."
"You're lucky it ain't two sections behind, this time of year. Travel is heavy."
Bartley's quick glance took in the big man from his high-heeled boots to his black Stetson. A cattleman, evidently well to do, and quite evidently not flustered by the mishaps of other folks.
"There's a right comfortable little hotel, just over there," stated the cattleman. "Wishful runs her. It ain't a bad place to wait for your train."
Bartley smiled in spite of his irritation.
The cattleman's eyes twinkled. "You'll be sending a wire to have 'em take care of your war bag. Well, come on in and send her. You can catch Number Eight about Winslow."
The cattleman forged ahead, and in the telegraph office, got the immediate attention of the operator, who took Bartley's message.
The cattleman paid for it. "'Tain't the first time my size has cost me money," he said, as Bartley protested. "Now, let's go over and get another cigar. Then we can mill around and see Wishful. You'll like Wishful. He's different."
They strode down the street and stopped in at a saloon where the cattleman called for cigars. Bartley noticed that the proprietor of the place addressed the big cattleman as "Senator."
"This here is a dry climate, and a cigar burns up right quick, if you don't moisten it a little," said the cattleman. "I 'most always moisten mine."
Bartley grinned. "I think the occasion calls for it, Senator."
"Oh, shucks! Just call me Steve--Steve Brown. And just give us a little Green River Tom."