Edward G. Cheyney

SCOTT FINDS A NEW HOME

When Scott came over to the hotel for his noon meal he found things very much changed. There was none of the sneering contempt which had so maddened him in the morning. His conquest of the big black had gained for him the admiration of the cowboys. They were all very friendly, so friendly in fact, that it was rather embarrassing, for their friendliness nearly always took the form of an invitation to drink which Scott courteously but firmly refused to do. The boys could not understand this very well, but they were willing to respect the rights of a man who could ride a wild horse with a fingernail saddle, and they soon ceased to bother him.

Soon after lunch the supervisor came in hurriedly. “Burton,” he said, “I find that I shall not be able to go out with you in the morning, so I shall have to go this afternoon if you can get ready.”

“Sure,” Scott replied, “the sooner the better. I am ready to start any time.”

“You can take your blankets along now, and I’ll send your duffle up with the next pack train. You get your blankets and I’ll get out your horse. Mine is out in front now.”

Scott hurried upstairs to get his blanket roll. As he had told Mr. Ramsey he was ready to go with him, but he was wondering to himself whether he could do it. If the big horse happened to want to go in that direction all would be well, but if he did not Scott felt that he would probably go somewhere else. He was a little afraid that his second ride might not end as fortunately as his first, but he put on a bold face and carried the blanket roll to the stable as confidently as he could.

Mr. Ramsey had led out the black and was looking him over. Mr. McGoorty had followed Scott out.

“Do you really want to use that English saddle?” the supervisor asked.

“No,” Scott answered, “It is the only kind I have ever used but it would make me too conspicuous, and I might as well get used to a stock saddle now. It must be better or every one here would not use it.”

“You’ll find it a lot more convenient,” said the supervisor, evidently relieved. “A fellow nearly always has a bunch of duffle to carry along and there is no place to put it on that fingernail affair. One of these stock saddles is nearly as good as a trunk for packing stuff.”

“Take one of mine and try it out,” said McGoorty. He had taken a great fancy to Scott and was very solicitous to see that he did nothing to spoil the reputation he had so well started.

Scott took pains to make friends with the horse which seemed to remember him, submitted to his caresses and nuzzled the side of his coat for the expected lump of sugar. With McGoorty’s help Scott managed to get the ponderous stock saddle in place and the strange cinches properly fastened. It was not done without a struggle for the big fellow was not at all sure that he liked it, but kindness seemed to have a great influence over him, and a little petting did more to soothe him than twenty men.

Mr. Ramsey backed off to look at him. “Gee, he certainly is a beauty,” he exclaimed admiringly. “Will you let me try him this afternoon?”

Scott hesitated. “The boys might think that I was afraid to ride him again,” he said doubtfully.

“Don’t let that worry you,” McGoorty said, “you showed your nerve this morning and can do what you please now.”

“Then you better ride him,” Scott said, “it was only luck this morning that he did not break my neck. I had no control over him and could not make him go anywhere that he did not want to go. If we want to go anywhere in particular this afternoon you better take him. But,” he added decidedly, “if there is any question of making good I’ll ride him if he kills me.”

“All right,” laughed the supervisor, “he will get plenty of chance to do that later. You tie that blanket roll back of my saddle and take my horse.” Mr. Ramsey was an expert horseman and really wanted to give the horse a little training. He was pleased at Scott’s attitude. He led the big black out into the street and waited for Scott to mount. McGoorty whispered to him furtively, “Jed is crazy because the kid got that stallion away from him. He is going to get even with the kid if he can. You better warn him.”

Mr. Ramsey nodded. “All ready?” he called to Scott.

Scott answered by swinging the hanging rein over the horse’s head and scrambling into the saddle. He made a rather undignified mount because he had not counted on the Western pony’s habit of starting forward as soon as the rein is in place. It is up to the rider to catch the stirrup at once; his failure to do so makes the horse nervous. However, Scott managed to crawl on even though he missed the stirrup. Mr. Ramsey mounted at the same time, prepared for trouble. The black seemed a little startled at first and reared almost straight up, but a gentle voice reassured him and he quieted down.

“Ride ahead a little,” Mr. Ramsey called, “and he’ll come along. He does not know much about being driven.”

Scott trotted his mount down the street and the black quickly overtook him. He could not bear to have another horse ahead of him.

For a few miles they rode in silence while Mr. Ramsey worked patiently to get the black very gradually accustomed to control. He found him much more amenable to the tone of the voice than he was to the bit. He could talk him into almost anything.

“Burton,” Mr. Ramsey called enthusiastically as they turned into a little side valley which led back into the mountains, “I believe you have the best horse in the Southwest. There does not seem to be anything mean about him. Go slow with him, talk to him gently, keep your temper, and you’ll never have any trouble with him. Go easy on the bit, remember that he does not know anything and will learn slowly, and he’ll be trained before you know it. What are you going to name him?”

“I have been thinking about that,” Scott replied, “and I think I shall call him ‘Jed.’”

Mr. Ramsey made a wry face and then laughed, “Sort of hard on the horse, but good enough for Jed. By the way, Jed is pretty sore at losing him and will try very hard to get even with you.”

“I thought I was just getting even with him,” Scott said. “He expected to break my neck and he almost succeeded.”

“That is true enough, but it is not the way that Jed looks at it. He is a mean customer and I advise you not to get mixed up with him. He’s quick on the draw and the surest shot in the country. He has caused trouble for every patrolman we have ever had on this district.”

“What should I expect from him?” Scott asked seriously.

“Everything, but of course his chief object will be to run in about twice as many sheep as he is paying for. Heth will be assigned to you as an extra guard. He knows the sheep business from A to Z and can put you onto all their tricks.”

They rode out of the little caÑon to a high bench on the mountain side. There was a large open plain on the bench, known as a “park,” and beyond it the thinly timbered slopes led up to the higher ridges. The caÑon up which they had come looked like a slit in the ground, and on either side of it the level plain stretched out toward the main valley where it fell abruptly to the valley level in an almost perpendicular cliff.

“The boundary of this forest,” the supervisor explained, “follows the edge of that cliff for about five miles. This caÑon is the most important approach from the valley, the only one in fact that the stockmen can use. That fence and gateway there is the chute and the sheep are counted as they come in.”

They crossed the park and followed a winding, sidehill trail up across the face of the slope. The stand of trees was so open and there was so little underbrush that it did not seem to Scott much like the Northern forests he had known.

“That big locked box there,” Mr. Ramsey explained again, “is a tool cache. It is filled with fire-fighting tools. The ranger will furnish you with a pass key and give you all the necessary instructions.”

They came to the fork in the trail. “That one to the left,” said Mr. Ramsey, “leads over to your headquarters, but we’ll go on to the ranger cabin and he’ll bring you back here.”

Some three miles farther on and over the ridge lay the ranger’s headquarters. Scott paused on the ridge and looked back. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. The wonderfully clear atmosphere made everything stand out with equal intensity whether it was one or twenty miles away. The size of the object alone gave one an idea of the distance; if there was no known object in sight for comparison the distance remained unknown. The park they had left an hour before seemed right at their feet; the houses in the town far down in the valley looked like toys, but every detail of them was distinct.

The colors also seemed most unreal. There were no gray rocks and brown hillsides such as Scott had seen so often at home. The cliffs all took on various purple hues and what should have been a dull, dead brown had here a rich, attractive, reddish tinge. The shadows on the forested hillsides were the deepest purple.

“Think an artist was crazy if he painted those colors,” Mr. Ramsey suggested, reading his thoughts.

“Have thought so more than once,” Scott said. “Sort of makes up for the bareness, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose it does look pretty bare to you coming straight from New England, but you’ll learn to like it. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

On the other side of the ridge was a very similar view, except that the valley was not so deep and there was no town at the bottom. In the immediate foreground was a neat little cabin set back against the hill in a flower-spangled yard. The Stars and Stripes streaming from the flag pole proclaimed its official character. It was the quarters of Ranger Dawson, Scott’s immediate boss.

They dropped down the trail to the cabin and Dawson came out to meet them. He was a local man who had been selected for his knowledge of the stock business and he had a very good record in the service. Somehow, Scott did not like the cold appraising look that the ranger gave him, but the welcome he received was cordial enough to satisfy any one. They dismounted at the gate.

“Mr. Dawson,” said Mr. Ramsey, “this is your new patrolman, Scott Burton.”

“Very glad to meet you,” said Mr. Dawson warmly, but he could not waste much attention on a new patrolman when he had sighted the supervisor’s new horse. “How in thunder did you get that horse, John?” he asked curiously.

“Burton bought him from Jed Clark this morning and I borrowed him this afternoon. Isn’t he a dandy?”

“Didn’t suppose Jed would sell him at any price,” said Dawson looking enviously at the big black, “and I did not suppose that any one could ride him if he did.”

“No one else supposed so either ’til Burton rode him this morning with a fingernail saddle. Jed was pretty sore because he did not break his neck and you’ll have to keep an eye out to see that he does not slip anything over on Burton to get even.”

Dawson looked Scott over again with increased interest and it seemed to Scott that his expression was harder than ever.

“You must be some rider,” Dawson finally remarked.

“Get your horse, Dawson,” Mr. Ramsey interrupted, “and we’ll take Burton down to his new quarters.”

They took a trail back along the ridge and soon dropped down into the head of a caÑon on the slope opposite the ranger cabin, to the shack which was to be Scott’s home through some of the most eventful months of his life. It was a rough board building with battened cracks, plain but neat. It contained only two bunks, a table, two chairs and a cook stove, but it commanded a beautiful view of the lower slopes and the valley beyond. It was just such a place as Scott had often pictured as an ideal camp.

“I told Heth to be here by three,” said Dawson, looking impatiently at his watch. It was four-thirty.

While Scott was still absorbed in the view there was a scrambling sound in the caÑon trail and a horseman came bobbing up, followed at some distance by a patient pack horse. The new arrival greeted Mr. Dawson and Mr. Ramsey rather casually and hardly nodded to Scott. He was evidently more interested in the black horse than in any of the men.

He was not a prepossessing looking man. Rather small and very dirty, with a decidedly peaked face and a shifting eye; he gave Scott the impression of a weazel. Whenever you looked at Heth he was looking some place else, but whenever you looked in another direction you felt that he was staring at you. He did not say anything about the horse and yet Scott felt sure that he knew all about it. On the whole he did not look like a very congenial companion with whom to share a twelve by sixteen cabin on a lonely mountain.

Dawson, who had been watching Scott sharply, seemed to guess his thoughts. “Heth will be stationed here with you as a guard,” he explained. “You probably will not like him much at first, but he is a good fellow; he knows all about sheep and you will find him a big help.”

Mr. Ramsey turned Jed into the corral and took over his own horse. “Well,” he said, “I must be going down. Thanks for the ride, Burton. You have a wonderful horse there. Watch Jed Clark and don’t let him slip anything over on you. So long and luck to you.”

“Call me up in the morning and I’ll give you your instructions,” said Dawson and he disappeared down the caÑon trail after the supervisor, leaving Scott standing near the door of the shack with the blanket roll still lying at his feet.