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

"No, I don't believe we will," was the reply. "Uncle John savvys this river like a native, an' if he looks at it tomorrow an' says 'Cross 'em,' they'll make it all right."

"Well, she's sure high, and 'tain't the water I'm afraid of half so much as the infernal quicksand. I never did like the water, nohow." He shook his head: "Once I got into the quicksand in the Little Colorado over in Arizony and like to ended up in the Campo Santo fer sure."

"Say" and his companion handed him a flaming match – "you smoke up a little an' fergit all that. We got troubles aplenty without huntin' up imaginary things to git skeered of. Did you hear the yarn that stray man was a-tellin' in camp tonight?" he remarked, with the evident intention of drawing his friend from so gloomy an outlook.

"Never a word; I was shoeing my horse when he was talkin' an' didn't hear what he was sayin'. What was he talkin' about?" the singer queried.

"Well," said the other, "it 'pears like he was workin' fer the Turkey Track outfit in Arizony and him an' another Turkey Track screw comes over the line to git a little touch of high life among the paisanos on this side. Well, they gits it all right, for between half a dozen Mexican women, two or three hombres, an' a kaig of mescal, 'tain't hard to start something; an' when the dust settled down this stray gent finds hisself with a dead man on his hands an' him over here where it's the eagle an' the snake instead of the Stars an' Stripes a-flyin' overhead. I was busy makin' down my bed an' never heerd how he come out 'ceptin' he says there was some fool law these Mexicans has which don't allow the body of any one what dies on Mexican soil to be taken out of the country for five years. So he had to leave his friend there instead of gittin' him acrost an' plantin' him up in the Pan Handle where his folks lived."

"What for don't they let any dead body be taken out of this here country?" And the boy turned uneasily in his saddle.

"Damfino," replied the other; "reckon it's just some cranky notion these Greasers got; maybeso they likes your sassiety an' hates to part with you, but, anyhow, that's the law all right, all right, an' if you dies here, you stays here, for five years, if no longer."

"Say, Jim," the kid's voice was full of awe; "My old mammy's up yonder in Trinidad, an' by hooky, if I was to die down here an' she couldn't git hold of me to bury me up there where she laid the old man an' my sister, she's like to go plum loco, fer sure."

"Well, you better make your plans to die on 'tother side the line or else so close to it that somebody can haze you across without any of them there Rurales gittin' on to your game," was Jim's reply, as he returned from chasing a steer back into the herd. "So far as I'm concerned," he continued, "I don't reckon it makes much difference where I'm stuck away, for I'm a drifter an' ain't got no kin that I knows of, an' I guess when a feller's dead he kin hear ole Gabe blow his horn on this side the Rio Grande jist as easy as on 'tother."

The next morning the sun was just peeping over the sand hills away to the east when Uncle John, who had been down along the river since the first gray streak in the sky announced the coming of day, rode into camp as the boys were catching out their horses. As the wagon boss glanced at him, he nodded and said, "All right, George, we'll try it this morning; the river has fallen a lot since last night."

"Which means that I turns this here mule loose an' gits me a horse," remarked one of the riders who had just roped a little black saddle mule, "fer a mule ain't no earthly good in water. If they gits their ears wet, they jist lays down on you, an' quits right there."

"On her hand I placed a ring,When I left her in the spring,'Way down yonder in the southwest land."

The singer's voice rose above the shouts of the other boys as they pushed the cattle along toward the river.

"An' she said she'd not forget me,Oh, she'll be there to meet me,'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande."

"That's right, Kid, sing to 'em. Time you've got through with this here muddy water job she won't know you if she is there to meet you," laughed the horse-wrangler.

As the herd swung down to the river, the horse-wrangler had his entire remuda at the water's edge, and with two men to help him he slowly forced the horses out into the stream, with old Bennie, the crack "cutting horse" of the outfit, in the lead. The old rascal had been used for this work for ten years and well knew that there was a nose bag full of oats waiting for him on the further bank of the river.

As the steers on the O. T. ranch had always been handled by placing the horse herd ahead of them when corraling or taking a narrow trail down some cañon, they followed the horses with little delay.

On the upper side of the lead cattle rode the Trinidad Kid on his best horse.

"Oh I know a shady spot,Where we'll build a little cot,'Way down yonder in the southwest land."And the mocking birds will sing,And the wedding bells will ring,'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande,"

he sang loudly as his pony plowed through the muddy water.

"Say Dick," shouted the man behind him, "ain't you going to ask us to all the doings when them wedding bells cut loose?"

"I reckon so," was the answer, "and what's more, if I gets me onto the yonderly side of this streak of mud, I'm a going to stay there. I've seen all I want to of this 'mañana land.'"

Just at the critical time, when everything seemed to be working out all right, a great wave of water swept down the stream and broke with a crash right in front of the leading steers. They hesitated for a moment, then another wave broke, and still another, and in an instant the leaders were swinging back on to each other in their senseless panic. In less than a minute a hundred of them were swimming round and round in the muddy waters, a whirling, struggling mass of horns and bodies. They jumped upon one another, bearing the under ones down into the water, until it was boiling with the fighting, maddened animals.

The kid did not wait for orders. Well he knew that it was up to him to break up that milling mighty quick or the whole day's work was lost. Heading his pony toward the struggling mass of animals, he drove at them without an instant's hesitation.

"Oh the mocking birds will sing,And the wedding bells will ring,'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande."

Singing at the top of his voice and swinging his slicker over his head, he swept down on the outside steers, being crowded on to them by the swift current against which his plucky pony struggled hard. Had he abandoned the effort and turned the animal up stream, facing the current, he might have breasted it and held his own, but the kid resolutely kept his place as well as he could.

"'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande,'Way down yonder in that southwest land,"

he sang valiantly as he thrashed the steers with his yellow slicker, trying to turn them from their course. He was rapidly accomplishing his purpose, and a few of the leaders were already turned and about to string out for the shore, when one broad-horned fellow right behind him raised in the water like some huge sea monster, and lunged upon his horse's hips with both front feet.

The weight of the steer drove the horse down into the water, the swift current swept him on to his side, and in a second he was under the mass of steers, his rider hanging to him.

A few minutes later the horse came into view from below the cattle but the boy was missing. Uncle John, at the first sign of trouble had dashed toward the spot, and as the horse came into sight leaned from his saddle, grabbed the bridle rein and pulled the half-drowned animal on to his feet in the shallower water. Spurring into the deep water again, he and the men with him swung up and down the line of cattle, watching with eager, anxious eyes for the slightest sign of a human form, but they could see nothing.

Meantime the steers were rapidly crossing, and the leaders had already climbed out on to the opposite bank and were working back from the river, coughing and shaking their dripping bodies.

Two other men joined Uncle John in the search for the lost singer, but though they watched every spot, riding up and down the stream for a mile, they were unable to discover any sign of the boy.

Leaving Jim and another man to watch the river, the rest of the outfit pushed the steers out on to the open range to graze.

Up and down the bank all that day the two men rode, reinforced by all the others who could be spared from the herd. Across the seat of the saddle on the horse ridden by the boy was a deep scar where the rowels of his spur had cut the leather, done probably as he slipped from the horse as he went under.

The steers could not be held there long, so the next morning Uncle John, with a heavy heart, started the outfit at daybreak for the railroad loading pens, thirty miles away, leaving Jim, who had asked for the job, behind to keep a lookout for the body of the drowned cowboy. All day long he rode the banks of the river. Every eddy as well as the great rafts of driftwood, was carefully searched. Just a short time before sunset he noticed a couple of buzzards a little lower down on the river slowly circling overhead. He knew their keen eyes saw something, and both hoping and dreading that it was what he sought, he worked his way down towards the point over which the great birds were hovering. Here the river had cut into the sandy bank and a thicket of willows hung over the yellow water. Getting down onto one knee, Jim peered under them.

Yes, there was "something" there. His heart came into his mouth, he gasped for breath, and the cold sweat stood on his face in great drops. A long, lance like pole from a nearby pile of drift wood, furnished him with a tool to sound the depth of water along the bank. It was not over waist deep, the bottom was firm, and, dropping off the bank, he waded down under the overhanging brush. There, floating in the stream, was the body of the Kid. A bough had caught in the belt of his leather "chaps" and held it firmly. It was the work of a moment for Jim to attach one end of his saddle rope to the belt and carry the other back with him to the open spot above the willows. His first intention was to tow the body up to a place where it could be taken out and then go for help.

Wading up the stream, he climbed out on the bank and sat down to rest for a moment. It was second nature for him to get out his pipe and tobacco, and as he sat there the talk between himself and the singer around the herd the night before the crossing came to his mind. What could he do? The body was found on Mexican soil. About a hundred yards from the bank behind his was a little Mexican jacal, or hut, where he had noticed half a dozen children – even now he could hear their shouts as they played. To get it away from there was seemingly impossible.

The twilight was nearly over and in the east the sky was glowing with the light of the moon, which almost at the full would soon rise. For half an hour he sat there thinking, the pipe smoked out and dead between his teeth. Then he rose, knocked the ashes out on his boot heel, slipped the pipe into his pocket, and worked his way carefully up to the top of the bank behind him. Peering through the fringe of trees, he saw in the moonlight the mud daubed jacal. A dog barked, in the distance a coyote answered with its shrill "yip, yip," and from the limbs of a mesquite – the family chicken coop – a rooster saluted the rising of the moon with a cheerful crow. In front of the jacal a bright spark glowed where the fire of mesquite limbs over which the evening supper had been cooked, was dying away, and he could dimly make out the forms of the family asleep on the ground near the hut.

Then, satisfied with the condition of things, he carefully worked his way back to the edge of the river, and, having looked to the rope, which he had fastened to a sharp piece of drift driven into the sand, lay down by it and in ten seconds was fast asleep.

About three o'clock the next morning, just as the moon dropped behind the cottonwoods along the river, throwing deep shadows over its sullen tide, four steers, probably lost from the herd the day before, came down to the river to drink. As they reached the edge of the water one raised his head quickly and snuffed the air. The others also threw up their heads and tested the air with their keen noses, their great ears cocked forward to catch the slightest sound. High headed and suspicious, they all stood for an instant, and then as if with one impulse ran back a few steps and stopped to look again.

Out there in the deep shadow something moved slowly and heavily. Now and then a splash came from the object as the water struck against it.

The steers snuffed and licked their lips as do such animals where fear and curiosity is struggling in them for the mastery. Then as the something moved more distinctly, with terror in their eyes they all turned and burst into the darkness behind them, crashing through the young cottonwoods and over piles of loose driftwood in their mad haste to escape – they knew not what. Still, the "something" came on; slowly it moved through the muddy waters until the form of a man could be distinguished in the uncertain light, carrying some heavy load.

At the edge of the river the man placed his burden on the soft sand and dropped down, panting for breath.

At noon that day, a single horseman rode a tired, sweat-covered animal into a little town on the railroad some thirty miles from the river. Two hours later, away to the north, under the snow-capped Rockies, where the city of Trinidad nestles below the Raton Pass, a lone woman received this brief message:

"Dick was accidentally drowned yesterday crossing the river. Wagon will be here tomorrow with body, Please wire instructions.

"James Scott."

PABLO

By permission The Breeder's Gazette, Chicago, III

"And Pablo."

"Señor?" And the boy looked inquiringly at the speaker. "You stay right here around this meadow. Here's plenty of feed and water for your band till I come back from town. Savvey?"

"Si, Señor."

"I won't be gone but three days, Pablo," continued the man, shifting uneasily in his saddle, "an' it's a tough deal to give you, but there's nothing else to do. That misable, onery Mack is drunk down in town an' won't never git out till his money's all gone an' somebody takes him by the scruff of the neck an' kicks him out of the saloon an' loads him onto his horse. You've got twelve hundred ewes an' 'leven hundred of the best lambs that this here range has ever seen. There's ten negros, tres campanas, an' cinco chivos; reckon you can keep track of 'em all?"

"Si, Señor," assented the boy, in whose veins flowed the blood of almost three centuries of sheepherders, "tres bells-campanas," and three fingers indicated the number of belled ewes in the bunch, "cinco goats," and one outspread hand showed the number of goats with the ewes, "diez black-a markers," holding up all ten fingers.

"That's right, muchacho," answered the man; "you keep track of your markers an' bells an' goats, an' you won't lose any sheep. There's plenty of water here for your camp, and the sheep won't need any for some days. There's a lot of poison weeds lower down on the mountain, an' it won't do to graze the band that-a-way. Take 'em up toward the top if you go anywhere; but keep your camp here an' stay with it till I come back, savvey?"

"Si, Señor," with a quick nod of the head.

The man dropped off his horse, gave the curly black mop on the boy's head a hasty pat, picked up the lead rope of a pack mule standing near and, mounting, rode off down the trail.

The little meadow was located on a small bench high on the breast of a mountain whose bare granite peaks rose rough and ragged far above the timber line. At one side of the meadow, under a mighty fir tree, stood the herder's tent, a white pyramid among the green foliage. If there was another human being nearer than the little railroad town forty-five miles away, the boy knew it not. He watched the man ride slowly down the trail until he disappeared behind a mass of trees. The dog at his side whined as the man was lost to view and poked his cold muzzle into the boy's hand.

"Ah, perrito mio," and he hugged the fawning animal close to his body, "the patron has gone and left us here all alone to care for the sheep. Think of it, I, Pablo, to be trusted with so much. Shall we not care for them as for our own? Didst hear him say we were not to leave this camp while he was away? Ten black ones for markers, three bells and five great chivos. Aha, we shall count them each a hundred times a day, and sly indeed will be the ewe that shall escape from us. Is it not so, my brave Pancho?" And for answer the dog barked and romped about the lad as if to show he also appreciated the honor and responsibility thrust upon the two.

Down the trail the sheepman, Hawk, jogged along toward the town where Mac, the recreant herder, was doubtless wasting his substance in riotous living. "If ever I git holt of that there rascal, I'll wear out the ground with him," he soliloquized. "To go off and leave me with a band of ewes on my hands at such a time and not come back as he promised. Serves me right for letting him go, for I might 'a' known he'd not come back in time. That there Pablo's a good kid all right, but it's a pretty big risk to turn over to a twelve-year-old boy that many ewes and lambs. Lucky for me he happened to stay in camp after the lambing was over; his father's about the best sheepherder on the whole range, and them Mexican kids would rather herd a bunch of sheep than ride on a merry-go-round. Well," and he slapped his horse with the end of his rope, "he's got a good dog, the best in the mountains, an' if he keeps track of his bells an' markers 'tain't likely he'll lose any sheep. However, there ain't no use worrying over it, for I couldn't stay there myself any longer, an' the sooner I gits to town an' hustles that there red headed Mac out to camp, the better."

Down at the foot of the mountain he met a forest ranger leading a pack mule.

"What's doing?" asked Hawk of the government man.

"Big fire over on 'tother side of the mountain," answered the ranger. "Old man phoned me to get over there as soon as ever I could and lend a hand. Mighty dry season now, and if fire ever gets started it'll take a lot more men to stop it than we got in this forest. I been riding now night and day for the last thirty days patroling my district, to lookout for fires, and I hate to have to go clear over on the other side and leave it all uncovered."

"How big a district you got, anyhow?" queried the sheepman.

"Little over six townships and a half; that's over a hundred and fifty thousand acres, and it's all a-standing on edge too" – he waved his gloved hand toward the range about them – "so there's twice as much, if you count the mountain sides. The Super, he asked for six more rangers last fall when he sent in his annual report, but the high collars back there in Washington said Congress was cutting down expenses and so we'd have to spread ourselves out and cover the ground, and do the best we could. That's why the boss rustled the boys out in such a hurry, for we can't afford to take any chances on a fire getting a start. If it ever does, it's good-bye trees, for once a fire gets under good headway in these mountains, with conditions just right, all the fire fighters in hell couldn't stop it. So long, old man, I've got to be a-drifting."

As the ranger moved off up the cañon, the sheepman turned and glanced up at the sky toward the spot where he had left Pablo and his charges. There were no signs of smoke in the clear blue above, so he touched the horse with his spurs and resumed his journey, content to leave the fire fighting to the ranger force until he was called on for aid. Anyhow, it was clear over on the other side of the mountain and he wasn't interested there, and it would be time enough to worry when it got over on to his side. Meanwhile, there was that miserable Mac drunk in town and another band of lambs and ewes somewhere on the range, that he ought to look in on before long.

Back on the mountain meadow Pablo and his ewes and lambs got on famously. The boy pushed the band out on to the mountainside, away from camp, telling Pancho to care for them while he went to find the two pack burros and drive them back to camp. All day long the boy watched the herd as a hen watches her chicks. Over and over again he counted the ten black "markers," those black sheep that come in every flock and without which no herder would work. If all ten of them were there in the herd it was safe to presume that none of the ewes had been lost, for, as they grazed back and forth through the timber, "cuts" might happen to the best of herders. Once he counted but nine. Yes, surely there were but nine. He called the dog to his side, pointed to a ridge beyond them and told the animal to go over there and look for the missing ones.

Away Pancho bounded, stopping often to look back at his master for orders. The boy waved his arm and the dog went on until he stood a black speck at the top of the ridge. With foot upraised and ears cocked, he watched again for commands. Another wave of the arm and the dog dashed over the ridge and out of sight. Half an hour later an eager bark came from the ridge, and there, slowly toiling through the trees, came the lost sheep, followed by the faithful dog, keeping them moving toward the herd and yet not hurrying them beyond the speed of the lambs. In their lead was the black marker. Once more his ten negros were all there.

The next night from over the mountain-top rolled a great wave of black smoke. The sheep, "bedded down" near the camp, were uneasy and kept sniffing at the heavy air. At daylight the boy pushed them from the bed ground and worked them up toward the mountain-top, where the trees stopped growing and there was little danger of fire reaching them. Leaving the dog to care for the sheep, the boy climbed up higher until he could see about him. On every side was a sea of smoke. Great black billows rolled up from below him and the wind blew a gale from the direction of the other side of the mountain. The patron would be back that night, but until then Pablo must stay where he was, for had he not been told to do so? All day he watched the smoke boiling up about him. The sheep were restless and bunched up in spite of his efforts to get them to scatter out and graze as they should.

In the afternoon he worked his way down the mountainside, below the meadow and, perched on a huge boulder, watched the fire licking its way slowly through the forest. As far as he could see the red line stretched like a fiery snake, but unless the wind changed it would not reach his camp for some time yet.

If only the patron would come and relieve him of this responsibility! All those ewes with their fine lambs grazing there, and depending on him, Pablo, for protection and care. What should he do? He must not leave the camp, and still, if he kept the sheep there and the fire really came to the meadow, they might all die.

Late that evening the wind changed and blew up the cañon like a gale, carrying with it clouds of smoke and burning brands which started fires far in advance of the main line. But the boy stayed with the sheep, wide awake and watchful, hardly taking time to eat his simple meals of frijoles, mutton and bread. Below him, the sky was alight with the flames. Now and then a thunderous crash told where some giant of the forest had given up the fight – three hundred and fifty years' work undone in an hour. Half a dozen coyotes and a wildcat skulked out of the timber that fringed the meadow and buried themselves in the little clump of willows that grew about the spring. By midnight he realized that to stay where he was meant death for himself and his woolly charges. The sheep were restless, constantly moving about on the bed ground, the lambs running and bleating through the herd as if they, too, realized the danger. The dog whined and looked anxiously toward the coming light, which now made the night almost as bright as noonday.

"What would'st thou do, Panchito?" said the boy. "Did not the patron tell us to remain here until he came, and yet, shall we stay and die when the fire comes?" Then the thought came to him that up higher on the mountain the sheep would be safe if once there.