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466 THE
I THE m
(Continued from Page 435.)
Again the day was gone, and the night
had come on. and one that, save for those
great open star eyes in heaven, had been
black. A gray starlight, mingling with
the faint afterglow of twilight, showed
clearly tne outlines of distant Sapio. Far
out in the well-browsed corrals the herds
were moving drowsily about or lying
down in peaceful rumination. The air
was cool, and a camp fire had been kindled
near the larger shanty door. About
it was gathered the whole cowboy force
of the ranch, smoking, yarning, and
swearing, with "Rio Grande" Jim and
old Benito holding the center of the
stage.
Naturally, Mayfield and I drifted to
seats very near to Benito's elbows. It
was comfortable to be in reach of a tried
and approved friend, and it has been
made plain that the trapper was in good
odor about the shanties. In view of this,
we found it doubly easy to be silent on
the subject of his many romances in our
interest. Inevitably the threatened visitation
of the "Rustlers" came up for conversation,
and Jim was bantering the
trapper to remain and join the round-up
planned for the next day.
"Come 'long with us, ol' badger," said
Jim, "an' mebbe I'll gin yer a shot at one
uv them two-legged varmints."
"Begorry! an' Oi should be glad av/the
chance," returned the trapper; "but Oi've
a lot av traps out-ut, an' Oi must be
]'avin' wid the foorst sthrake av day on
the tothermost av Sapio."
"But the skelp uv one uv them 'Rustler'
wolves would be worth more'n a
hundred otter pelts. The sheriff'll give
yer a hundred er so, an' I'll stand fer the
company's addin' a hundred er so more,"
said the manager.
At this mention of reward a murmur
of satisfaction went round the whole cowboy
circle, and I detected more than one
hand fondling the haft of a revolver. The
trapper listened eagerly; but it was evident
that, having accomplished the purpose
of his visit to the shanties, he was
resolved to return without delay to his
traps.
And now seems a proper time for me
to pause in my narrative and give a few
touches descriptive of the members of
the party that sat with us and our Irish
-1 A At- -- *
iratiuu imil infill ctuoui ldc ranon camp
fire.
First, of course, in this list must come
the manager, or foreman, of the ranch,
"Rio Grande" Jim. Jim had got his sobriquet
while herding ponies along the
river by that name. He had acted during
much of this time as a sheriff's deputy
in picking up, and picking off, Mexican
horse thieves. He had also once
been a regular Ranger, and the places
which knew him remembered him for
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOI
^Totsapio
*By Horace M. Dufiose.
ever. For obvious reasons, and at good
wages, me ricn sapio company nad
brought him up country and put him in
charge of its herds and herding forces.
Jim was the incarnation of levity, and
good-natured depravity when sober, and
was an unorganized county of Hades
when drunk. He stood fully six feet in
his boots, and had corsair mustaches,
which he trained downward like those
of the mandarins seen in the pictures on
Chinese tea chests. His color was that
of a copper brazier after much use. He
might have been Dago, Creole, Greaser,
or Indian; hut he was neither. He was
a down-easter, hailing in youth from the
land of the wooden nutmeg. He carried
in his tones the Green Mountain drawl,
and diluted the rank and turgid profanity
of his speech with a frequent "I
guess" and "I swan." He had left a record
when much younger somewhere in
tne tast. He had "fit Injuns" as a first
experience in the West, and had then '
struck "the Keow Kentry," which he had
split wide open in a generally honest but
wild and reckless career.
When "leathered," armed, and ready
to mount his broncho for a drive or a
tear, he might have stood for a silhouette
of Lucifer, so haughty and defiant
did he appear in the primacy of that lawless
Sapio realm. He was as reckless of
the vicissitudes of the climate of the
desert as he was of the stings of the
gnats, which at seasons drove the herds
to the verge of madness. The winds
which in summer tanned his skin and in
winter hardened it almost into insensibility
helped to complete outwardly the
manner of his inward nature.
Yet for all this .we fennri
Grande" Jim was not wholly devil, but
that sometimes a kindlier and more human
self spoke out; and when it did, it
was with a vehemence that was characteristic.
The destiny line of gravitation
toward "his own place" had not been entirely
passed. But Jim. as he lived and
moved and had his being about the Sapio
Ranch, was a cyclone, an infernal machine,
a great gross of tabasco, and a
torchlight procession rolled up in buckskin
and cowhide.
This was "Rio Grande" Jim; and from
him I pass to the others, taking them in
the order in which they impressed me
on that night of our advent to the shanties.
Nearest to me and on my right sat
"Kid" Tomlinson, who long before our
coming had been dubbed in all the region
about the "cowboy dandy." There was
something in his air and dress, even in
his leather leggings and woolen shirt,
which justified this designation. He had
been well born somewhere, though I am
not sure to this rlav that T ovor honrrl
where. There must have been some
JTH April 13, 1910.
RANCH
careful training put upon him, too; unfortunately,
these happier early fortunes
nau, line metheglin when long exposed to
the infection of a riotous atmosphere,
turned to viegar and gall. With the exception
of occasional manifestations of
what he must once have been, Tomlinson
was a reprobate and a sinner, albeit one ^
with high-born ideas of ribaldry and blasphemy.
He was a sort of enigma in the ^
camp, envied and courted by turns. Between
him and the foreman there were
often strained relations, and more than
once open hostilities had been threatened.
I but state the fact when I say that
there was a sort of mutual recognition,
on sight, between this refined reprobate
and myself. When I first shook hands
with him there was a retention in his
grip which seemed to speak as by some
sign of natural freemasonry that we were
to be friends together from that moment
onward. And It was so.
Next to Tomlinson sat Pete Carver
with his chin almost between his drawnup
knees. Pete was an ordinary cowboy
tough, with plenty of cunning; but, as it
seemed, no great amount of intelligence,
though I now recall that this impression
of his lack of strong wit was deepened
by his slouching manner and a general
neglect of his person. His hair was worn
in a long, shaggy mane, which, mingling
with his unkempt beard, gave him the
facial appearance of a huge poodle. The
presence of the two recruits to the ranks
of which hp was a '
.. uivuiuci ?eta apparently
of no more interest to him than if the
manager had taken a couple of extra
chews of navy twist. He did not greet
us with so much as a straight look.
Pete had a Winchester carbine the
stock of which was a wonder, he having
inlaid it with many curiously shaped bits
of silver and a number of Mexican opals.
There were also on the bevel of this
stock several mysterious notches, which
may or may not have had something to
do with Pete's sullen air and morose
temper.
"Joaquin" Smithers came next. He
was a lithe, youthful-looking fellow, without
beard. He also might have come
from a good home, but he lacked the tokens
of early training and education
which were rather marked in Tomlinson.
"Joaquin" had seen a lot for a chan of
his age, and was a good story-teller in
his way, which was, in fact, nearly always
a fascinating way. He had been a
miner before he joined the army of cow
punchers, and before that he had stoked
on a Union Pacific locomotive, when to
run from Denver to Cheyenne was to
uiKe tne risK of being roasted in a railroad
wreck at the hands of the redskins.
Before that?well, he had been In Chicago
before the big fire, and had been