consent was reluctant, but it was fairly prompt. “I’ll get rid of the sheep,” he said, as if he was minded to clinch the promise. “I’ll do it at once.”
“That’s nice.” Andy spoke with grim irony. “And you’ll get rid of the ranch, too. You’ll sell it to the Flying U—cheap.”
“But my partner—Whittaker might object—”
“Look here, old-timer. You’ll fix that part up; you’ll find a way of fixing it. Look here—at what you’re up against.” He waited, with pointing finger, for one terrible minute. “Will you sell to the Flying U?”
“Y-yes!” The word was really a gulp. He tried to avoid looking where Andy pointed; failed, and shuddered at what he saw.
“I thought you would. We’ll get that in writing. And we’re going to wait just exactly twenty-four hours before we make a move. It’ll take some fine work, but we’ll do it. Our boss, here, will fix up the business end with you. He’ll go with yuh right now, and stay with yuh till you make good. And the first crooked move you make—” Andy, in unconscious imitation of the Native Son, shrugged a shoulder expressively and urged Weary by a glance to take the leadership.
“Irish, you come with me. The rest of you fellows know about what to do. Andy, I guess you’ll have to ride point till I get back.” Weary hesitated, looked from Happy Jack to Oleson and the herders, and back to the sober faces of his fellows. “Do what you can for him, boys—and I wish one of you would ride over, after Pink gets back, and—let me know how things stack up, will you?”
Incredible as was the situation on the face of it, nevertheless it was extremely matter-of-fact in the handling; which is the way sometimes with incredible situations; as if, since we know instinctively that we cannot rise unprepared to the bigness of its possibilities, we keep our feet planted steadfastly on the ground and refuse to rise at all. And afterward, perhaps, we look back and wonder how it all came about.
At the last moment Weary turned back and exchanged guns with Andy Green, because his own was empty and he realized the possible need of one—or at least the need of having the sheep-men perfectly aware that he had one ready for use. The Native Son, without a word of comment, handed his own silver-trimmed weapon over to Irish, and rolled a cigarette deftly with one hand while he watched them ride away.
“Does this strike anybody else as being pretty raw?” he inquired calmly, dismounting among them. “I’d do a good deal for the outfit, myself; but letting that man get off—Say, you fellows up this way don’t think killing a man amounts to much, do you?” He looked from one to the other with a queer, contemptuous hostility in his eyes.
Andy Green took a forward step and laid a hand familiarly on his rigid shoulder. “Quit it, Mig. We would do a lot for the outfit; that’s the God’s truth. And I played the game right up to the hilt, I admit. But nobody’s killed. I told Happy to play dead. By gracious, I caught him just in the nick uh time; he’d been setting up, in another minute.” To prove it, he bent and twitched the handkerchief from the face of Happy Jack, and Happy opened his eyes and made shift to growl.
“Yuh purty near-smothered me t’death, darn yuh.”
“Dios!” breathed the Native Son, for once since they knew him jolted out of his eternal calm. “God, but I’m glad!”
“I guess the rest of us ain’t,” insinuated Andy softly, and lifted his hat to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “I will say that—” After all, he did not. Instead, he knelt beside Happy Jack and painstakingly adjusted the crumpled hat a hair’s breadth differently.
“How do yuh feel, old-timer?” he asked with a very thin disguise of cheerfulness upon the anxiety of his tone.
“Well, I could feel a lot—better, without hurtin’ nothin,” Happy Jack responded somberly. “I hope you fellers—feel better, now. Yuh got ‘em—tryin’ to murder—the hull outfit; jes’ like I—told yuh they would—” Gunshot wounds, contrary to the tales of certain sentimentalists, do not appreciably sweeten, or even change, a man’s disposition. Happy Jack with a bullet hole through one side of him was still Happy Jack.
“Aw, quit your beefin’,” Big Medicine advised gruffly. “A feller with a hole in his lung yuh could throw a calf through sideways ain’t got no business statin’ his views on nothin’, by cripes!”
“Aw gwan. I thought you said—it didn’t amount t’ nothin’,” Happy reminded him, anxiety stealing into his face.
“Well, it don’t. May lay yuh up a day or two; wouldn’t be su’prised if yuh had to stay on the bed-ground two or three meals. But look at Slim, here. Shot through the leg—shattered a bone, by cripes!—las’ night, only; and here he’s makin’ a hand and ridin’ and cussin’ same as any of us t’day. We ain’t goin’ to let yuh grouch around, that’s all. We claim we got a vacation comm’ to us; you’re shot up, now, and that’s fun enough for one man, without throwin’ it into the whole bunch. Why, a little nick like that ain’t nothin’; nothin’ a-tall. Why, I’ve been shot right through here, by cripes”—Big Medicine laid an impressive finger-tip on the top button of his trousers—“and it come out back here”—he whirled and showed his thumb against the small of his back—“and I never laid off but that day and part uh the next. I was sore,” he admitted, goggling Happy Jack earnestly, “but I kep’ a-goin’. I was right in fall roundup, an’ I had to. A man can’t lay down an’ cry, by cripes, jes’ because he gets pinked a little—”
“Aw, that’s jest because—it ain’t you. I betche you’d lay ‘em down—jest like other folks, if yuh got shot—through the lungs. That ain’t no—joke, lemme tell yuh!” Happy Jack was beginning to show considerable spirit for a wounded man. So much spirit that Andy Green, who had seen men stricken down with various ills, read fever signs in the countenance and in the voice of Happy, and led Big Medicine somewhat peremptorily out of ear-shot.
“Ain’t you got any sense?” he inquired with fine candor. “What do you want to throw it into him like that, for? You may not think so, but he’s pretty bad off—if you ask me.”
Big Medicine’s pale eyes turned commiseratingly toward Happy Jack. “I know he is; I ain’t no fool. I was jest tryin’ to cheer ‘im up a little. He was beginnin’ to look like he was gittin’ scared about it; I reckon maybe I made a break, sayin’ what I did about it, so I jest wanted to take the cuss off. Honest to gran’ma—”
“If you know anything at all about such things, you must know what fever means in such a case. And, recollect, it’s going to be quite a while before a doctor can get here.”
“Oh, I’ll be careful. Maybe I did throw it purty strong; I won’t, no more.” Big Medicine s meekness was not the least amazing incident of the day. He was a big-hearted soul under his bellow and bluff, and his sympathy for Happy Jack struck deep. He went back walking on his toes, and he stood so that his sturdy body shaded Happy Jack’s face from the sun, and he did not open his mouth for another word until Irish and Jack Bates came rattling up with the spring wagon hurriedly transformed with mattress, pillows and blankets into an ambulance.
They had been thoughtful to a degree. They brought with them a jug of water and a tin cup, and they gave Happy Jack a long, cooling drink of it and bathed his face before they lifted him into the wagon. And of all the hands that ministered to his needs, the hands of Big Medicine were the eagerest and gentlest, and his voice was the most vibrant with sympathy; which was saying a good deal.
Chapter XVI. The End of the Dots
Slim may not have been more curious than his fellows, but he was perhaps more single-hearted in his loyalty to the outfit. To him the shooting of Happy Jack, once he felt assured that the wound was not necessarily fatal, became of secondary importance. It was all in behalf of the Flying U; and if the bullet which laid Happy Jack