_ CHAPTER X. "TURN HIM LOOSE!"
Blue Smoke was one of those unfortunate animals known as an outlaw. He was a blue roan with a black stripe down his back, a tough, strong pony, with a white-rimmed eye as uncompromising as the muzzle of a cocked gun. He was of no special use as a cow-pony and was kept about the ranch merely because he happened to belong to the Concho caviayard. It took a wise horse and two good men to get a saddle on him when some aspiring newcomer intimated that he could ride anything with hair on it. He was the inevitable test of the new man. No one as yet had ridden him to a finish; nor was it expected. The man who could stand a brief ten seconds' punishment astride of the outlaw was considered a pretty fair rider. It was customary to time the performance, as one would time a race, but in the instance of riding Blue Smoke the man was timed rather than the horse. So far, Bailey himself held the record. He had stayed with the outlaw fifteen seconds.
Pete learned this, and much more, about Blue Smoke's disposition while the men ate and joked with Mrs. Bailey. And Mrs. Bailey, good woman, was no less eloquent than the men in describing the outlaw's unenviable temperament, never dreaming that the men would allow a boy of Pete's years to ride the horse. Pete, a bit embarrassed in this lively company, attended heartily to his plate. He gathered, indirectly, that he was expected to demonstrate his ability as a rider, sooner or later. He hoped that it would be later.
After dinner the men loafed out and gravitated lazily toward the corral, where they stood eying the horses and commenting on this and that pony. Pete had eyes for no horse but Blue Smoke. He admitted to himself that he did not want to ride that horse. He knew that his rise would be sudden and that his fall would be great. Still, he sported the habiliments of a full-fledged buckaroo, and he would have to live up to them. A man who could not sit the hurricane-deck of a pitching horse was of little use to the ranch. In the busy season each man caught up his string of ponies and rode them as he needed them. There was neither time nor disposition to choose.
Pete wished that Blue Smoke had a little more of Rowdy's equable disposition. It was typical of Pete, however, that he absolutely hated to leave an unpleasant task to an indefinite future. Moreover, he rather liked the Concho boys and the foreman. He wanted to ride with them. That was the main thing. Any hesitancy he had in regard to riding the outlaw was the outcome of discretion rather than of fear. Bailey had said there was no work for him. Pete felt that he had rather risk his neck a dozen times than to return to the town of Concho and tell Roth that he had been unsuccessful in getting work. Yet Pete did not forget his shrewdness. He would bargain with the foreman.
"How long kin a fella stick on that there Blue Smoke hoss?" he queried presently.
"Depends on the man," said Bailey, grinning.
"Bailey here stayed with him fifteen seconds onct," said a cowboy.
Pete pushed hack his hat. "Well, I ain't no bronco-twister, but I reckon I could ride him a couple o' jumps. Who's keepin' time on the dog-gone cayuse?"
"Anybody that's got a watch," replied Bailey.
Pete hitched up his chaps. "I got a watch and I'd hate to bust her. If you'll hold her till I git through"--and he handed the watch to the nearest cowboy. "If you'll throw my saddle on 'im, I reckon I'll walk him round a little and see what kind of action he's got."
"Shucks!" exclaimed Bailey; "that hoss would jest nacherally pitch you so high you wouldn't git back in time for the fall round-up, kid. He's bad."
"Well, you said they wa'n't no job till fall, anyhow," said Pete. "Mebby I'd git back in time for a job."
Bailey shook his head. "I was joshin'--this mornin'."
"'Bout my ridin' that hoss? Well, I ain't. I'm kind of a stranger up here, and I reckon you fellas think, because that doggone ole soap-foot fell down with me, that I can't ride 'em."
"Oh, mebby some of 'em," laughed Bailey.
Pete's black eyes flashed. To him the matter was anything but a joke. "You give me a job if I stick on that hoss for fifteen seconds? Why, I'm game to crawl him and see who wins out. If I git pitched, I lose. And I'm taking all the chances."
"Throw a saddle on him and give the kid a chanct," suggested a cowboy.
Bailey turned and looked at Pete, whose eyes were alight with the hope of winning out--not for the sake of any brief glory, Pete's compressed lips denied that, but for the sake of demonstrating his ability to hold down a job on the ranch.
"Rope him, Monte," said Bailey. "Take the sorrel. I'll throw the kid's saddle on him."
"Do I git the job if I stick?" queried Pete nervously.
"Mebby," said Bailey.
Now Pete's watch was a long-suffering dollar watch that went when it wanted to and ceased to go when it felt like resting. At present the watch was on furlough and had been for several days. A good shake would start it going--and once started it seemed anxious to make up for lost time by racing at a delirious pace that ignored the sun, the stars, and all that makes the deliberate progress of the hours. If Pete could arrange it so that his riding could be timed by his own watch, he thought he could win, with something to spare. After a wild battle with the punchers, Blue Smoke was saddled with Pete's saddle. He still fought the men. There was no time for discussion if Pete intended to ride.
"Go to 'im!" cried Bailey.
Pete hitched up his chaps and crawled over the bars. "Jest time him for me," said Pete, turning to the cowboy who held his watch.
The cowboy glanced at the watch, put it to his ear, then glanced at it again. "The durn thing's stopped!" he asserted.
"Shake her," said Pete.
Pete slipped into the saddle. "Turn 'im loose!" he cried.
The men jumped back. Blue Smoke lunged and went at it. Pete gritted his teeth and hung to the rope. The corral revolved and the buildings teetered drunkenly. Blue Smoke was not a running bucker, but did his pitching in a small area--and viciously. Pete's head snapped back and forth. He lost all sense of time, direction, and place. He was jolted and jarred by a grunting cyclone that flung him up and sideways, met him coming down and racked every muscle in his body. Pete dully hoped that it would soon be over. He was bleeding at the nose. His neck felt as though it had been broken. He wanted to let go and fall. Anything was better than this terrible punishment.
He heard shouting, and then a woman's shrill voice. Blue Smoke gave a quick pitch and twist. Pete felt something crash up against him. Suddenly it was night. All motion had ceased.
When he came to, Mrs. Bailey was kneeling beside him and ringed around were the curious faces of the cowboys.
"I'm the Ridin' Kid from Powder River," muttered Pete. "Did I make it?"
"That horse liked to killed you," said Mrs. Bailey. "If I'd 'a' knew the boys was up to this . . . and him just a boy! Jim Bailey, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Ma Bailey wiped Pete's face with her apron and put her motherly arm beneath his head. "If he was my boy, Jim Bailey, I'd--I'd--show you!"
Pete raised on his elbow. "I'm all right, mam. It wa'n't his fault. I said I could ride that hoss. Did I make it?"
"Accordin' to your watch here," said the puncher who held Pete's irresponsible timepiece, "you rid him for four hours and sixteen minutes. The hands was a-fannin' it round like a windmill in a cyclone. But she's quit, now."
"Do I git the job?" queried Pete.
"You get right to bed! It's a wonder every bone in your body ain't broke!" exclaimed Ma Bailey.
"Bed!" snorted Pete. He rose stiffly. His hat was gone and one spur was missing. His legs felt heavy. His neck ached; but his black eyes were bright and blinking.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Bailey. "Why, the boy is comin' to all right!"
"You bet!" said Pete, grinning, although he felt far from all right. He realized that he rather owed Mrs. Bailey something in the way of an expression of gratitude for her interest. "I--you, you sure can make the best pie ever turned loose!" he asserted.
"Pie!" gasped the foreman's wife, "and him almost killed by that blue devil there! You come right in the house, wash your face, and I'll fix you up."
"The kid's all right, mother," said Bailey placatingly.
Mrs. Bailey turned on her husband. "That's not your fault, Jim Bailey. Such goin's-on! You great, lazy hulk, you, to go set a boy to ridin' that hoss that you dassent ride yourself. If he was my boy--"
"Well, I'm willin'," said Pete, who began to realize the power behind the throne.
"Bless his heart!" Mrs. Bailey put her arm about his shoulders. Pete was mightily embarrassed. No woman had ever caressed him, so far as he could remember. The men would sure think him a softy, to allow all this strange mothering; but he could not help himself. Evidently the foreman's wife was a power in the land, for the men had taken her berating silently and respectfully. But before they reached the house Pete was only too glad to feel Mrs. Bailey's arm round his shoulders, for the ground seemed unnecessarily uneven, and the trees had a strange way of rocking back and forth, although there was no wind.
Mrs. Bailey insisted that he lie down, and she spread a blanket on her own white bed. Pete did not want to lie down. But Mrs. Bailey insisted, helping him to unbuckle his chaps and even to pull off his boots. The bed felt soft and comfortable to his aching body. The room was darkened. Mrs. Bailey tiptoed through the doorway. Pete gazed drowsily at a flaming lithograph on the wall; a basket of fruit such as was never known on land or sea, placed on a highly polished table such as was never made by human hands. The colors of the chromo grew dimmer and dimmer. Pete sighed and fell asleep.
Mrs. Bailey, like most folk in that locality, knew something of Pete's earlier life. Rumor had it that Pete was a bad one--a tough kid--that he had even killed two cowboys of the T-Bar-T. Mrs. Bailey had never seen Pete until that morning. Yet she immediately formed her own opinion of him, intuition guiding her aright. Young Pete was simply unfortunate--not vicious. She could see that at a glance. And he was a manly youngster with a quick, direct eye. He had come to the Concho looking for work. The men had played their usual pranks, fortunately with no serious consequences. But Bailey should have known better, and she told him so that afternoon in the kitchen, while Pete slumbered blissfully in the next room. "And he can help around the place, even if it is slack times," she concluded.
That evening was one of the happiest evenings of Pete's life. He had never known the tender solicitude of a woman. Mrs. Bailey treated him as a sort of semi-invalid, waiting on him, silencing the men's good-natured joshing with her sharp tongue, feeding him canned peaches--a rare treat--and finally enthroning him in her own ample rocking-chair, somewhat to Pete's embarrassment, and much to the amusement of the men.
"He sure can ride it!" said a cowboy, indicating the rocking-chair.
"Bill Haskins, you need a shave!" said Mrs. Bailey.
The aforesaid Bill Haskins, unable to see any connection between his remark and the condition of his beard, stared from one to another of his blank-faced companions, grew red, stammered, and felt of his chin.
"I reckon I do," he said weakly, and rising he plodded to the bunk-house.
"And if you want to smoke," said Mrs. Bailey, indicating another of the boys who had just rolled and lighted a cigarette, "there's all outdoors to do it in."
This puncher also grew red, rose, and sauntered out.
Bailey and the two remaining cowboys shuffled their feet, wondering who would be the next to suffer the slings and arrows of Ma Bailey's indignation.
They considered the Blue Smoke episode closed. Evidently Ma Bailey did not. Bailey himself wisely suggested that they go over to the bunk-house. It would be cooler there. The cowboys rose promptly and departed. But they were cowboys and not to be silenced so easily.
They loved Ma Bailey and they dearly loved to tease her. Strong, rugged, and used to activity, they could not be quiet long. Mrs. Bailey hitched a chair close to Pete and had learned much of his early history--for Pete felt that the least he could do was to answer her kindly questions--and he, in turn, had been feeling quite at home in her evident sympathy, when an unearthly yell shattered the quiet of the summer evening. More yells--and a voice from the darkness stated that some one was hurt bad; to bring a light. Groans, heartrending and hoarse, punctuated the succeeding silence. "It's Jim," the voice asserted. "Guess his leg's bruk."
The groaning continued. Mrs. Bailey rose and seized the lamp. Pete got up stiffly and followed her out. One of the men was down on all fours, jumping about in ludicrous imitation of a bucking horse; and another was astride him, beating him not too gently with a quirt. As Ma Bailey came in sight the other cowboys swung their hats and shouted encouragement to the rider. Bailey was not visible.
"Stay with 'im!" cried one. "Rake 'im! He's gittin' played out! Look out! He's goin' to sunfish! Bust 'im wide open!"
It was a huge parody of the afternoon performance, staged for Ma Bailey's special benefit. Suddenly the cowboy who represented Blue Smoke made an astounding buck and his rider bit the dust.
Ma Bailey held the lamp aloft and gazed sternly at the two sweating, puffing cowboys. "Where's Bailey?" she queried sharply.
One of the men stepped forward and doffing his hat assumed an attitude of profound gravity. "Blue there, he done pitched your husband, mam, and broke his leg. Your husband done loped off on three laigs, to git the doctor to fix it."
"Let me catch sight of him and I'll fix it!" she snorted. "Jim, if you're hidin' in that bunk-house you come out here--and behave yourself. Lord knows you are old enough to know better."
"That's right, mam. Jim is sure old enough to know better 'n to behave hisself. You feed us so plumb good, mam, that we jest can't set still nohow. I reckon it was the pie that done it. Reckon them dried apples kind of turned to cider."
Mrs. Bailey swung around with all the dignity of a liner leaving harbor, and headed for the house.
"Is she gone?" came in a hoarse whisper.
"You come near this house to-night and you'll find out!" Mrs. Bailey advised from the doorway.
"It's the hay for yours, Jim," comforted a cowboy.
Pete hesitated as to which course were better. Finally he decided to "throw in" with the men.
Bailey lighted the hanging lamp in the bunk-house, and the boys shuffled in, grinning sheepishly. "You're sure a he-widder to-night," said Bill Haskins sympathetically.
Bailey grinned. His good wife was used to such pranks. In fact the altogether unexpected and amusing carryings on of the boys did much toward lightening the monotony when times were dull, as they were just then. Had the boys ceased to cut up for any length of time, Ma Bailey would have thought them ill and would have doctored them accordingly.
Pete became interested in watching Bill Haskins endeavor to shave himself with cold water by the light of the hanging lamp.
Presently Pete's attention was diverted to the cowboy whom Mrs. Bailey had sent outdoors to smoke. He had fished up from somewhere a piece of cardboard and a blue pencil. He was diligently lettering a sign which he eventually showed to his companions with no little pride. It read:
"NO SMOKING ALOUD."
Pete did not see the joke, but he laughed heartily with the rest. The laughter had just about subsided when a voice came from across the way: "Jim, you come right straight to bed!"
Bailey indicated a bunk for Pete and stepped from the bunk-house.
Presently the boys heard Mrs. Bailey's voice. "Good-night, boys."
"Good-night, Ma!" they chorused heartily.
And "Good-night, Pete," came from the house.
"Good-night, Ma!" shrilled Pete, blushing.
"I'm plumb sore!" asserted Haskins. "'Good-night, boys,' is good enough for us. But did you hear what come after! I kin see who gits all the extra pie around this here ranch! I've half a mind to quit."
"What--eatin' pie?"
"Nope! Joshin' Ma. She allus gits the best of us." _