Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan «Outlaw» and Other Stories. Barnes Will Croft
more he read the letter.
"Hm, Shucks, wants a railroad train, hey? An' a gunchester to kill rabbits, an' a tin horn, an' Mary wants a Teddy bear, does she, an' apples an' oranges an' candy for all of 'em. Say, Bill Gibson, it's up to you to play Santy Claus for these kids an' if you handle the job right maybe you can convince their Aunt Nancy that she'd ought to say 'Yes' to a man about your size an' complexion." Again he broke into song.
"Aleman left an' balance all.
Lift yer hoofs an' let 'em fall.
Swing yer op'sites; swing agin,
Kiss the darlings – if ye kin."
"Git up, Mack, les git along to camp and let the bunch in on this Santy Claus game. Hm, Shucks, Nancy said she wanted a watermelon-pink sweater – whatever color that may be – to wear to the New Year's dance up on Crow Creek. Reckin the thing won't cost more'n a month's pay. I'll jist get her one if it takes my whole roll." Once more he dropped into song.
"Back yer pardners, do-se-do.
Ladies break, an' gents you know.
Crow hop out, an' dove hop in,
Join yer paddies an' circle again.
"Salute yer pardner, let her go,
Balance all an' do-se-do.
Gents salute yer little sweets,
Hitch an' promenade to seats."
That night around the table in the bunk house of the Oak Creek Sheep Company, four or five men watched the foreman write a letter to the owner, Mr. Barrington, who was wintering on the coast. Briefly he explained how the letter to Santa Claus fell into their hands and the desire of the men at the ranch to furnish the children with all the things they asked for, and more.
Miller, the foreman explained, had been accidentally killed a couple of years before and his wife was putting up a hard fight to stay on the piece of land he had homesteaded long enough to get title to it from the government.
There were three kids, he continued, James, the oldest, seven years, and two girls, Mary, five, and Minnie, the baby, two.
"The boys ain't a-limiting you in the cost, so please get anything else you and Mrs. Barrington thinks would please the kids and let me know the cost and I'll charge it up to the boys' pay accounts.
"Also Bill Gibson wants that Mrs. Barrington should pick out what he says is to be a 'watermelon-pink' sweater for Mrs. Miller's kid sister, Nancy. Bill says Nancy is just about Mrs. Barrington's size, and what'd fit her will fit Nancy all right.
"Bill he says he reckons Mrs. B. will savvy what a watermelon-pink sweater is, which is more than any of us do."
Three days before Christmas Bill Gibson set forth for the railroad, twenty-five miles away, to bring back the expected Christmas stuff. There was two feet of snow on the ground and the roads were impassable for wheels; so Bill took with him two pack animals, a horse and a mule.
He figured he would be one day going and one coming and that on Christmas eve, after marking and arranging all the presents, some one would ride down to the cabin and leave the whole business on the porch of the widow's cabin where she would be sure to find it early Christmas morning. At the railroad Gibson found the trains all tied up with snow to the west, and the packages had not arrived.
"Hm, shucks," was his terse comment. "Now wouldn't it jist be hell if the plunder didn't come in time for them kids to have their Christmas tree?" But late that night a train came through which brought the package he had come for.
By unpacking the stuff from the box in which they were shipped Gibson managed to get everything in the two kyacks carried by the mule while upon the horse he packed a load of provisions for the camp.
Barrington and his wife had added liberally to the list of toys and, knowing well the conditions at the sheep ranch, had marked or tagged each article with the name of the child for which it was intended. Even Mrs. Miller had been remembered generously.
The sweater was there, packed carefully in a fancy box. Bill loosed the ribbon that fastened it and slipped a card into the box on which he had laboriously written, "To Miss Nancy, from her true friend, Bill."
But the storm broke out again and it was long after noon the next day before he dared start, for the wind blew great guns and the air was filled with icy particles that no one could face.
Leading the pack horse with the mule "tailed up" to him, Gibson started for home, but made poor progress through the drifted snow. It was almost two o'clock the next morning when he passed the letterbox at the trail to the Widow Miller's place. The moon had gone down behind the trees to the west and it was quite dark, but here the wind had swept the ground bare of snow, and his progress with his rather jaded animals was much better.
Sleepy and tired from his long ride Gibson reached the ranch and rode into the warm stable to unsaddle. There to his great surprise he found he had but one animal behind him, the rope which had been around the mule's neck still dragging at the pack horse's tail, a mute evidence of what had happened.
"Hm, shucks," he commented grimly, "won't them there boys in the bunk house give me particular hell for this night's work?"
Wearily he unsaddled and unpacked the horses. Still more wearily he dragged himself up the path to the house, stirred the fire in the fireplace into a blaze, and when the coffee was hot drank a cup, ate greedily of the food which the cook had left for him, crawled into his blankets and in ten seconds was dead to the world.
In his dreams he was swinging a rosy cheeked girl through the steps of an old-fashioned quadrille, she being attired in a most gorgeous watermelon-pink sweater.
"Swing yer pardners, swing agin;
Kiss the darlings – if you kin."
He essayed the kiss only to be awakened on the verge of its attainment by a heavy hand on his shoulder, followed by a voice which demanded in no soft tones, "Where's your Christmas plunder?"
He sat up in bed half dazed by his night's experience.
"Come alive, Bill; come alive, an' tell us about the things for the kids. We can't find them nowhere."
Gibson yawned and rubbed his eyes in a vain attempt to delay the castastrophe which he knew would encompass him when he told of the loss of the pack mule.
Before he dropped off to sleep he had planned to get an early start in the morning back on his trail to try to find the lost animal. Popgun had been bought from the widow soon after her husband's demise and he shrewdly guessed that the tired, hungry mule would most likely strike direct for his old and nearby home.
He sprang from bed and grabbed his clothes.
"Hm, shucks," he began. "I reckon I done lost the mule coming home. Had him tailed up to old Paint and just about the time I passed the trail into Widder Miller's place Paint set back on the lead rope and like to pulled the saddle offen old Mack, me havin' the rope tied hard and fast to the nub. He let up in a minute and come along all right and I'm a figuring 'twere just about there that Popgun gits loose, he probably havin' been leaning back on the pack hosse's tail a right smart causing Paint to pull back hisself. Popgun likely stripped the rope over his head and being about all in turned off down the trail to the widder's and it's dollars to doughnuts he's a eating hay in her shed right now. Me being tired and sleepy I never sensed the loss till I gits here with the mule's rope a dragging along still tied to Paint's tail. Hm, shucks, I'll find him or bust a shoe string."
"An' to think they have to go all the way back to Afriky to git ivory when there's such a lot of it to be had nearer home," was the sarcastic comment of the foreman.
From the windows of the Widow Miller's cabin the whole world seemed wrapped in a mantle of white. Down along the creek in the meadow the rose bushes and willows poked their heads above the snow. Changing their skirts for overalls, she and Nancy soon picked a couple of quarts of the brilliant red berries or fruit of the rose bushes. That night as soon as the children were safely in bed they started in on their Christmas tree preparations. Several days before Nancy had slipped out into