are you strong?” queried Cal, hesitatingly. “You look like you’d fall in two pieces.”
“I’m a deceiving cuss. Pretty much tuckered out now. But I was husky when I started West. A little rest and a mess-table like this would soon put me in as good shape as when I was one of Dempsey’s sparring pardners.”
“What?” cried Cal, breathlessly.
“See here, matey. I was raised on the waterfront in New York. Do you get that? Was in the navy for years. Finally was boxing instructor. Then after the war I knocked around in sparring bouts. Last job I had was with Dempsey.”
“Whoop-ee!” ejaculated Cal, under his breath. He slammed the table with his fist. The idea had assumed bewildering and exhilarating proportions. “Say, Tuck, I’ve taken a liking to you.”
“I’ll say that’s the first good luck I’ve had for many a day,” returned Merry, feelingly.
“I’ll get you a job—two dollars a day an’ board—all the good grub you can eat,” blurted out Cal, breathlessly and low. “Up on my father’s ranch. It’s Tonto country, an’ once you live there you will never leave it. You can save your money—homestead your hundred an’ sixty acres—an’ some day be a rancher.”
“Cal, I ain’t as strong as I thought,” replied Tuck, weakly. “Don’t promise so much at once. Just find me work an’ a meal ticket.”
“My father runs a sawmill,” went on Cal. “He always needs a man. An’ all us riders hate sawin’ wood. That job would give you time off now an’ then, to ride with us an’ go huntin’. I’ll give you a horse. We’ve got over a hundred horses out home. . . . Tuck, the job’s yours if you’ll do me a little favor.”
Tuck Merry held out his huge hand and said: “Mate, there ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Listen,” whispered Cal, intensely. “First, you’re not to tell a soul that you were in the marines an’ how you got that name Tuck an’ was one of Dempsey’s boxin’ pardners.”
“I get you, Cal. I’m dumb on the has-been stuff. I lose my memory.”
Cal was now tingling with thrilling glee at the enormous possibilities of his idea.
“Tuck, I’m the baby of the Thurman family,” he went on. “I’ve two brothers an’ seven cousins, all of which think I’m spoiled. Father gave me more time for schoolin’ an’ I’ve had a little better advantages, maybe. An’ these fellows all pick on me to beat hell. Now don’t let me give you the idea there’s any hard feelin’. Not at all. I sure think heaps of all the boys, an’ as for Enoch an’ Boyd, my brothers, I sure love them. But they all make life awful tough for me. Girls are scarce, an’ when we have dances—which is often—there are not enough to go round. If I poke my nose into the school-house, where we have our dances, I sure get it punched. For that matter, fightin’ is next to dancin’ in the Tonto. They sort of go together. Lately all my cousins seem to want to beat me up. They say I’m gettin’ big enough an’ that it ought to be done right before I take the bit in my teeth. Wess Thurman licked me bad not long ago. They’ve all had their fun with me, an’, darn it—I’ve never licked a single one of them. They’re older an’ bigger. . . . Now what I want you to do is to lick all of them.”
“Ain’t you givin’ me a large order, matey?” queried Merry, smiling for the first time.
“Not yet. Aw, Tuck, that’ll be easy. Don’t worry. They’ll all pick the fights. You needn’t do anythin’ but wait, an’ when one of them starts somethin’ you just tuck him away. It will tickle my father ’most as much as me.”
“I’ll do my best,” promised Merry. “What else? What’s the large order, if this one ain’t much?”
“Now I’m comin’ to hard feelin’s,” responded Cal, with more grimness than humor. “There’s Bloom, foreman of the Bar XX ranch. Bad blood between his outfit an’ the Thurmans. I’d like you to beat the daylights out of Bloom, an’ a couple others.”
“Cal, I heard this was wild country, this Tonto. Isn’t there liable to be gun-play?”
“Why, if you packed a gun it might be risky. But if you don’t there’s no danger. You’ll fool these riders somethin’ awful. I know it. I can just see what’ll come off. They’ll all make fun of you, an’ Bloom an’ his kind will insult you. All you’ll need to do is to say, ‘Mister, would you oblige me by gettin’ off your horse’, an’ he’ll pile off like a fallin’ log. Then you say, ‘You see I don’t pack a gun, an’ if you’re a gentleman an’ not afraid, you’ll lay off your hardware.’ The rest, pard Tuck, will be immense.”
“You’re on. Pard she is,” replied Tuck, offering his huge hand. There were a depth and a gravity in his acceptance of this gauge, and he crushed Cal’s fingers in a tremendous grip. Cal jerked, writhed, and then sank down with a groan.
“Say, man! Let go!” he cried, and then, as his hand came free, limp and crumpled, he rubbed it and tried to move his fingers. “Sufferin’ bobcats! I want to use this hand again.” Then he laughed with grim glee. “Tuck, you’re goin’ to give me a lot of joy. Now let’s see. You can go back to Green Valley with me. I’m to meet a woman, sister of our school-teacher, an’ take her home. I reckon you’ll need to buy some things, unless you’ve got some Sunday clothes in that bundle.”
“These are my swell togs,” replied Tuck, with a grin. “There’s nothing in my pack but blankets, some odds an’ ends, an’ a pair of boxing-gloves.”
“Huh! Then you can teach me to box?” queried Cal, with his glance dark and full of fire.
“Cal, in three months I’ll have you so you can stand your nice relatives in a row an’ lick them all one after another.”
“Glory! Wouldn’t that be great,” ejaculated Cal. “But it’s too good to be true. One a week would be good enough. Here’s some money, Tuck. You go buy what you need. An’ be sure you’re hangin’ round when that outfit rides in from Green Valley. They’re up to some job.”
“Pard Cal, I’ll be there with bells on,” replied the lanky Tuck.
Cal parted from his new-found friend and went out to take a message for his sister, an errand he had forgotten. His keen eye scanned the long, bare, dusty road that led eastward toward Green Valley. No sign of the boys yet! He did not wish them any very bad luck, but he hoped their car would break down. But he well knew that nothing short of a miracle could keep them from being on hand when the stage arrived. That thought prompted him to hurry with his errand, and then go back to the store to telephone. First he called up Roosevelt, to learn that the stage was ahead of time and had left there two hours earlier. Next he telephoned to Packard, a post-office and gasoline station on the Globe road. His call was answered by Abe Hazelitt, a young fellow he had known for years.
“Hello, Abe. This’s Cal—Cal Thurman—talkin’. How are you?”
“Howdy, Cal,” came the reply, in Abe’s high-pitched drawl. “Wal, I was shore fine jest lately, but now I’m dinged if I know whether I’m ridin’ or walkin’.”
“What’s the matter, Abe?” asked Cal.
“Cal, I’m gosh-durned if I know. But the stage jest rolled in—an’ somethin’s happened.”
“Stage? Ahuh!” replied Cal, with quickening of interest. “That’s what I wanted to know about. On time, huh?”
“Way ahead of time. We all near dropped dead. Jake’s drivin’ like hell today, I’ll tell the world.”
“Jake drivin’ fast?” echoed Cal. “Sure that’s funny. What’s got into him?”
“Reckon it’s the same as what’s got into me, Cal.”
“Aw, you’re loco. Abe,