On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane
But don’t let me keep you from your dinner. Here’s where I break even with Jim Swope for all that grub I cooked last Spring,” he remarked, as he filled his plate. “But if it was him that asked me,” he added, “I’d starve to death before I’d eat it.”
He sat on his heels by the canvas, with the boss sheepman on the other side, and the Mexicans who had been so cocky took their plates and retired like Apaches to the edge of the brush, where they would not obtrude upon their betters.
“They say it’s bad for the digestion,” observed Hardy, after the first silence, “to talk about things that make you mad; so if you don’t mind, Mr. Thomas, we’ll forget about Jim Swope. What kind of a country is it up there in Apache County, where you keep your sheep all Summer?”
“A fine country,” rejoined Thomas, “and I wish to God I was back to it,” he added.
“Why, what’s the matter with this country? It looks pretty good to me.”
“Ye-es,” admitted the sheepman grudgingly, “it looks good enough, but –– well, I lived up there a long time and I got to like it. I had one of the nicest little ranches in the White Mountains; there was good huntin’ and fishin’ and –– well, I felt like a white man up there –– never had no trouble, you understand –– and I was makin’ good money, too.”
His voice, which before had been harsh and strident, softened down as he dwelt upon the natural beauty of the mountains which had been his home, but there was a tone of sadness in his talk which told Hardy that ultimately he had suffered some great misfortune there. His occupation alone suggested that –– for there are few white men working as sheep-herders who lack a hard luck story, if any one will listen to it. But this Shep Thomas was still young and unbroken, with none of the black marks of dissipation upon his face, and his eyes were as keen and steady as any hunter’s. He was indeed the very type of fighter that Swope had sought, hardy and fearless, and at the same time careful. As they sat together Hardy looked him over and was glad that he had come out unarmed, yet though his host seemed a man of just and reasonable mind there was a set, dogged look in his eyes which warned the cowman not to interfere, but let him talk his fill. And the boss herder, poor lonely man, was carried away in spite of himself by the temptation of a listener; after many days of strife and turmoil, cutting trails, standing off cowmen, cursing Mexicans, at last to meet a white man who would just sit silent and let him talk! His stories were of hunting and fishing, of prospecting, and restless adventures among the Indians, and every time the conversation worked around towards sheep he led it resolutely away. And for his part, never for a moment did Hardy try to crowd him, but let the talk lead where it would, until of his own volition the sheepman told his story.
“I suppose you wonder what I’m doing down here,” he said at last, “if I was so stuck on the Concho country? Well, I bet you wouldn’t guess in a thousand years –– and you ought to be a pretty good guesser, too,” he added, with a gruff laugh. “Now, what do you think it was that put me on the bum?”
“Poker game?” queried Hardy politely.
“Nope,” replied the sheepman, showing his teeth, “I’m winners on poker.”
“You don’t look like a drinking man.”
“Naw –– nor it wasn’t women, either. It’s something unusual, I tell you. I stood and looked at it for ten years, and never turned a hair. But here, I’ve been holdin’ out on you a little –– I never told you what it was I raised on my ranch. Well, it was sheep.”
“Sheep?” echoed Hardy, “did you keep ’em there all Winter?”
“W’y sure, man. There’s lots of sheep in Apache County that was never ten miles from home.”
“Then why does Jim Swope bring his bands south every Fall? I hear he loses five per cent of them, at the least, coming and going.”
“Ah, you don’t understand Jim as well as I do. I was tryin’ to make a livin’; he’s tryin’ to git rich. He’s doin’ it, too.”
Once more the note of bitterness came into his voice, and Hardy saw that the time had come.
“How’s that?” he inquired quietly, and the sheepman plunged into his story.
“Well, it was this way. I kept a few thousand sheep up there in my valley. In the Summer we went up the mountain, followin’ the grass, and in the Winter we fed down below, where the ground was bare. It never got very cold, and my sheep was used to it, anyhow. The Navajos don’t move their sheep south, do they? Well, they’re away north of where I was. We jest give ’em a little shelter, and looked after ’em, and, as I says, I was doin’ fine –– up to last year.”
He paused again, with his secret on his lips, and once more Hardy supplied the helping word.
“And what happened then?” he asked.
“What happened then?” cried Thomas, his eyes burning. “Well, you ought to know –– I was sheeped out.”
“Sheeped out? Why, how could that happen? You were a sheepman yourself!”
The boss herder contemplated him with an amused and cynical smile. “You ask Jim Swope,” he suggested.
For a minute Hardy sat staring at him, bewildered. “Well,” he said, “I can’t figure it out –– maybe you wouldn’t mind telling me how it happened.”
“Why hell, man,” burst out the sheepman, “it’s as plain as the nose on your face –– I didn’t belong to the Association. All these big sheepmen that drive north and south belong to the Sheepmen’s Protective Association, and they stand in with each other, but we little fellows up in ’Pache County was nobody. It’s about ten years ago now that the Swope outfit first came in through our country; and, bein’ in the sheep business ourselves, we was always friendly, and never made no trouble, and naturally supposed that they’d respect our range. And so they did, until I found one of Jim’s herders in on my ranch last Summer.
“Well, I thought there was some misunderstandin’, but when I told him and his compadres to move it was a bad case of ‘No savvy’ from the start; and while I was monkeyin’ around with them a couple of more bands sneaked in behind, and first thing I knew my whole lower range was skinned clean. Well, sir, I worked over one of them paisanos until he was a total wreck, and I took a shot at another hombre, too –– the one that couldn’t savvy; but there was no use cavin’ round about it –– I was jest naturally sheeped out.
“It looked like I was busted, but I wouldn’t admit it, and while I was studyin’ on the matter along comes Jim himself and offers me five thousand dollars for my sheep. They was worth ten if they was worth a cent, all fine and fat; but my winter feed was gone and of course I was up against it. I see somethin’ would have to be done, and dam’ quick, too; so I chased down to St. John and tried to git a higher bid. But these sheepmen stand in with each other on a proposition like that, and I couldn’t git nawthin’.
“‘All right,’ I says to Jim, ‘take ’em, and be dam’ed to you.’
“‘The price has gone down,’ says Jim. ‘I’ll give you four thousand.’
“‘What!’ I says.
“‘Three thousand,’ says Jim.
“‘You’ll give me five thousand,’ says I, crowdin’ my gun against his short ribs, ‘or I’ll let the light in on you,’ and after that Jim and me understood each other perfectly. In fact, we got stuck on each other. Yes, sir, after I got over bein’ excited and could listen to reason, he put it to me straight –– and he was right.
“‘What’s the use of bein’ the yaller dog?’ he says. ‘You can’t buck the whole Association. But we’ve got room for you,’ he says, ‘so git on and ride.’ And here I am, by Joe, leadin’ the procession.”
The sheepman