I can point to a little mamma’s lamb that won’t take down his rope to his betters again, either!” he cried angrily. “Climb down and get your ears cuffed proper, yuh darned, pink little smart Aleck; or them shiny heels’ll break your pretty neck. Thump me with a rope, will yuh?”
Pink got down. Immediately after, to use a slang term, they “mixed.” Presently Cal, stretched the long length of him in the grass, with Pink sitting comfortably upon his middle, looked up at the dizzying swim of the moon, saw new and uncharted stars, and nearer, dimly revealed in the half-light, the self-satisfied, cherubic face of Pink.
He essayed to rise and continue the discussion, and discovered a quite surprising state of affairs. He could scarcely move: and the more he tried the more painful became Pink’s diabolical hold of him. He blinked and puzzled over the mystery.
“Of all the bone-headed, feeble-minded sons-uh-guns it’s ever been my duty and pleasure to reconstruct,” announced Pink melodiously, “you sure take the sour-dough biscuit. You’re a song that’s been tried on the cattle and failed t’ connect. You’re the last wail of a coyote dying in the dim distance. For a man that’s been lynched and cut down and waiting for another yank, you certainly—are—mild! You’re the tamest thing that ever happened. A lady could handle yuh with safety and ease. You’re a children’s playmate. For a deep-dyed desperado that’s wanted for manslaughter in Texas, perjury in South Dakota, and bigamy in Utah, you’re the last feeble whisper of a summer breeze. You cuff my ears proper? Oh, my! and oh, fudge! It is to laugh!”
Cat, battered as to features and bewildered as to mind, blinked again and grinned feebly.
“Yuh try an old gag that I wore out on humans of your ilk in Wyoming,” went on Pink, warming to the subject. “Yuh load me with stuff that would bring the heehaw from a sheep-herder. Yuh can’t even lie consistent to a pilgrim. You’re a story that’s been told and forgotten, a canto that won’t rhyme, blank verse with club feet. You’re the last, horrible example of a declining race. You’re extinct.”
“Say”—Pink’s fists kneaded energetically Cal’s suffering diaphragm.—“are yuh—all—ba-a-d?”
“Oh, Lord! No. I’m dead gentle. Lemme up.”
“D’yuh think that critter will quit the bunch ag’in tonight?”
“He ain’t liable to,” Cal assured him meekly. “Say, who the devil are yuh anyhow?”
“I’m Percival Cadwallader Perkins. Do yuh like that name? Do yuh think it drips sweetness and poetry, like a card uh honey?”
“Ouch! It—it’s swell!”
“You’re a dam’ liar,” declared Pink, getting up. “Furthermore, yuh old chuckle-head, yuh ought t’ know better than try t’ run any ranikaboos on me. I’ve got your pedigree, right back to the Flood; and it’s safe betting yuh got mine, and don’t know it. Your best girl happens to be my cousin.”
Cal scrambled slowly and painfully to his feet. “Then you’re Milk River Pink. I might uh guessed it,” he sighed.
“I cannot tell a lie,” Pink averred. “Only, plain Pink’ll do for me. Where d’yuh suppose the bunch is by this time?”
They mounted and rode back together. Cal was deeply thoughtful.
“Say,” he said suddenly, just as they parted to ride their rounds, “the boys’ll be tickled plumb to death. We’ve been wishing you’d blow in here ever since the Cross L quit the country.”
Pink drew rein and looked back, resting one hand on the cantle. “My gentle friend,” he warned, “yuh needn’t break your neck spreading the glad tidings. Yuh better let them frivolous youths wise-up in their own playful way, same as you done.”
“Sure,” agreed Cal, passing his fingers gingerly over certain portions of his face. “I ain’t a hog. I’m willing they should have some sport with yuh, too.”
Next morning, when Cal appeared at breakfast with a slight limp and several inches of cuticle missing from his features, the Happy Family learned that his horse had fallen down with him as he was turning a stray back into the herd.
Chip looked up quizzically and then hid a smile behind his coffee-cup.
It was Weary that afternoon on dayherd who indulged his mendacity for the benefit of Pink; and his remarks were but paving-stones for a scheme hatched overnight by the Happy Family.
Weary began by looking doleful and emptying his lungs in sighs deep and sorrowful. When Pink, rising obligingly to the bait, asked him if he felt bad. Weary only sighed the more. Then, growing confidential, he told how he had dreamed a dream the night before. With picturesque language, he detailed the horror of it. He was guilty of murder, he confessed, and the crime weighed heavily on his conscience.
“Not only that,” he went on, “but I know that death is camping on my trail. That dream haunts me. I feel that my days are numbered in words uh one syllable. That dream’ll come true; you see if it don’t!”
“I—I wouldn’t worry over just a bad dream, Mr. Weary,” comforted Pink.
“But that ain’t all. I woke up in a cold sweat, and went outside. And there in the clouds, perfect as life, I seen a posse uh men galloping up from the South. Down South,” he explained sadly, “sleeps my victim—a white-headed, innocent old man. That posse is sure headed for me, Mr. Perkins.”
“Still, it was only clouds.”
“Wait till I tell yuh,” persisted Weary, stubbornly refusing comfort. “When I got up this morning I put my boots on the wrong feet; that’s a sure sign that your dream’ll come true. At breakfast I upset the can uh salt; which is bad luck. Mr. Perkins, I’m a lost man.”
Pink’s eyes widened; he looked like a child listening to a story of goblins. “If I can help you, Mr. Weary, I will,” he promised generously.
“Will yuh be my friend? Will yuh let me lean on yuh in my dark hours?” Weary’s voice shook with emotion.
Pink said that he would, and he seemed very sympathetic and anxious for Weary’s safety. Several times during their shift Weary rode around to where Pink was sitting uneasily his horse, and spoke feelingly of his crime and the black trouble that loomed so closer and told Pink how much comfort it was to be able to talk confidentially with a friend.
When Pink went out that night to stand his shift, he found Weary at his side instead of Cal. Weary explained that Cal was feeling pretty bum on account of that fall he had got, and, as Weary couldn’t sleep, anyway, he had offered to stand in Cal’s place. Pink scented mischief.
This night the moon shone brightly at intervals, with patches of silvery clouds racing before the wind and chasing black splotches of shadows over the sleeping land. For all that, the cattle lay quiet, and the monotony of circling the herd was often broken by Weary and Pink with little talks, as they turned and rode together.
“Mr. Perkins, fate’s a-crowding me close,” said Weary gloomily, when an hour had gone by. “I feel as if—what’s that?”
Voices raised in excited talk came faintly and fitfully on the wind. Weary turned his horse, with a glance toward the cattle, and, beckoning Pink to follow, rode out to the right.
“It’s the posse!” he hissed. “They’ll go to the herd so look for me. Mr. Perkins, the time has come to fly. If only I had a horse that could drift!”
Pink thought he caught the meaning. “Is—is mine any good, Mr. Weary?” he quavered. “If he is, you—you can have him. I—I’ll stay and—and fool them as—long as I can.”
“Perkins,” said Weary solemnly, “you’re sure all right! Let that posse think you’re the man they want for half an hour, and I’m safe. I’ll never forget yuh!”
He had not thought of changing horses, but the temptation mastered him. He was riding a little sorrel,