The Settling of the Sage. Hal G. Evarts
Harris curiously as he deliberately provoked the argument, then sat back and listened to the various ideas of the others as the discussion became heated and general. It occurred to Evans that Harris was classifying the men by their views, and when the argument lagged the lean man grinned and gave it fresh impetus.
"It's a settled fact that the outfits that have put in hay are better off," he said. "But there's a dozen localities like this, a dozen little civil wars going on right now where the inhabitants are so mulish that they lay their ears and fight their own interests by upholding a flea-bit prejudice that was good for twenty years ago but is a dead issue to-day."
"And why is it dead to-day?" Morrow demanded. "And not as good as it always was?"
"Only a hundred or so different reasons," Evans returned indifferently. "Then beef-tops brought ten dollars a head and they're worth three times that now; then you bought a brand on the hoof, come as they run, for round five dollars straight through, exclusive of calves; now it's based at ten on the round-up tally. In those days a man could better afford to let part of his cows winter-kill than to raise feed to winter the whole of them through—among other things. These days he can't."
"And have your water holes fenced," Morrow said. "As soon as you let the first squatter light."
"The government has prohibited fencing water holes necessary to the adjacent range," Harris cut in. "If that valley was mine I'd have put it in hay this long time back."
"But it wasn't yours," Morrow pointed out.
"No; but it is now, or at least a part of it is," Harris said. "I picked up that school section that lays across the valley and filed on a home quarter that butts up against the rims." He sat gazing indifferently out the door as if unconscious of the dead silence that followed his remark. More men had drifted in till nearly a dozen were gathered in the room.
"That's never been done out here—buying school sections and filing squatter's rights," Morrow said at last. "This is cow country and will never be anything else."
"Good cow country," Harris agreed. "And it stands to reason it could be made better with a little help."
"Whenever you start helping a country with fence and plow you ruin it for cows," Morrow stated. "I know!"
"It always loomed up in the light of a good move to me," the newcomer returned. "One of us has likely read his signs wrong."
"There's some signs round here you better read," Morrow said. "They were posted for such as you."
"It appears like I'd maybe made a bad selection then. I'm sorry about that," Harris deprecated in a negligent tone that belied his words. "It's hard to tell just how it will pan out."
"Not so very hard—if you can read," the dark man contradicted.
The newcomer's gaze returned from down the valley and settled on Morrow's face.
"Do you run a brand of your own—so's you'd stand to lose a dollar if every foot of range was fenced?" he inquired.
"What are you trying to get at now?" Morrow demanded.
"Nothing much—now; I've already got," Harris said. "A man's interest lays on the side where his finances are most concerned."
"What do you mean by that?" Morrow insisted.
"You're good at predicting—maybe you're an expert at guessing too," Harris returned. And suddenly Evans laughed as if something had just occurred to him.
Morrow glanced at him without turning his head, then fell silent, his expression unchanged.
A chunky youngster stood in the door and bent an approving gaze on the big pinto as he swung out across the pasture lot. The boy's face was small and quizzical, a shaggy mop of tawny hair hanging so low upon his forehead that his mild blue eyes peered forth from under the fringe of it and gave him the air of a surprised terrier, which effect had gained him the title of Bangs.
"I bet the little paint-horse could make a man swing and rattle to set up in his middle, once he started to act up," he said.
"Calico wouldn't know how to start," Harris said. "A horse, inside his limitations, is what his breaker makes him. I never favored the idea of breaking a horse to fight you every time you climb him. My horses are gentle-broke."
"But you have to be able to top off just any kind of a horse," Bangs objected.
"That don't hinder a man from gentling his own string," Harris returned.
Bangs turned his surprised eyes on Harris and regarded him intently as if striving to fathom a viewpoint that was entirely new to him.
"Why, it don't, for a fact," he said at last. "Only I just never happened to think of it like that before."
Morrow laughed and the boy flushed at the disagreeable ring of it. The sound was not loud but flat and mirthless, the syllables distinct and evenly spaced. His white even teeth remained tight-closed and showed in flashing contrast to his swarthy face and black mustache. Morrow's face wore none of the active malignancy that stamps the features of those uncontrolled desperadoes who kill in a flare of passion; rather it seemed that the urge to kill was always with him, had been born with him, his face drawn and over-lengthened from the inner effort to render his homicidal tendencies submissive to his brain, not through desire for regeneration, for he had none, but as a mere matter of expediency. The set, bleak expression of countenance was but a reflection of his personality and his companions had sensed this strained quality without being able to define it in words.
"You listen to what the squatter man tells you," Morrow said to Bangs. "He'll put you right—give you a course in how everything ought to be done." He rose and went outside.
"That was a real unhumorous laugh," Evans said. "Right from the bottom of his heart."
A raucous bellow sounded from the cookhouse and every man within earshot rose and moved toward the summons to feed.
"Let's go eat it up," Evans said and left the bunk house with Harris.
"Did you gather all the information you was prospecting for?" he asked.
Harris nodded. "I sorted out one man's number," he said.
"Now if you'd only whispered to me I'd have told you right off," Evans said. "It's astonishing how easy it is to pick them if you try."
"Waddles is a right unpresuming sort of a man in most respects," Evans volunteered as they entered the cookhouse. "But he's downright egotistical about his culinary accomplishments."
All through the meal the gigantic cook hovered near Billie Warren as she sat near one end of the long table. It was evident to Harris that the big man was self-appointed guardian and counsellor of the Three Bar boss. He showed the same fussy solicitude for her welfare that a hen would show for her helpless chicks.
"Praise the grub and have a friend at court," Harris murmured in Evans' ear.
Billie Warren had nearly completed her meal before the men came in. She left the table and went to her own room. When Harris rose to go he slapped the big man on the back.
"I'd work for half pay where you get grub like this," he said. "That's what I'd call a real feed."
Waddles beamed and followed him to the door.
"It's a fact that I can set out the best bait you ever throwed a lip over," he confessed. "You're a man of excellent tastes and it's a real pleasure to have you about."
Billie Warren opened the door and motioned to Harris. He went into the big front room that answered for both living room and sleeping quarters. A fire burned in the rough stone fireplace; tanned pelts, Indian curios and Navajo rugs covered the walls; more rugs and pelts lay on the floor. Indian blankets partitioned off one end for her sleeping room.
"You had something to tell me," she observed, after he had remained silent for the space of a minute, sitting in the chair she had indicated and gazing into the fire.
"And