The Texican

"All right," replied the cowboy. "Did it git away with you?"

"Yep," returned the bar-keeper. "Don't like to talk about it – say, is they anybody left in Texas?"

The stranger gazed at him shrewdly for a moment, and a grim light came into his eye.

"Don't like to talk about it," he said, "but now you speak of it I know of one feller, for sure – and dam' badly left, too. May be around on crutches by now." He glanced out at his horse, which had just shaken itself under the saddle, and let his gaze wander to Marcelina.

"Pretty girls you have in this country," he remarked, turning a little sidewise to Babe, but watching her from beneath his hat. "Don't speak any English, I suppose?"

"Nope," replied Babe, sullenly, "her mother don't like cowboys. Oyez, Marcelina, vaya se a su madre, chiquita!" But though her mother was calling, the wilful Marcelina did not move. Like an Aztec princess she stood silent and impassive, gazing out from beneath her dark lashes and waiting to catch some further word of praise from this dashing stranger. Undoubtedly, Marcelina was growing to be a woman.

"Name's Marcelina, eh?" soliloquized the cowboy, innocently. "Pity she can't savvy English – she's right pretty, for a Mex."

At that last unconscious word of derogation the regal beauty of Marcelina changed to a regal scorn and flashing her black eyes she strode towards the door like a tragic queen.

"Gr-ringo!" she hissed, turning upon him in the doorway, and seizing upon her pail of lard she scampered up the trail.

"Hell's fire!" exclaimed the Tehanno. "Did she understand what I said?"

"That's what," replied Babe, ungraciously, "you done queered yourself with her for life. She won't stand for nothin' aginst her people."

"Huh!" grumbled the newcomer, "that's what comes from drinkin' yore pisen whiskey. I begin to savvy now, Pardner, why you passed up that sheep-herder dope and took water."

He grinned sardonically, making a motion as of a pin-wheel twirling in his head, but the bar-keeper did not fall in with his jest. "Nothin' of the kind," he retorted. "W'y, boy, I could drink that whole bottle and walk a tight rope. I guess you don't know me – I'm Angevine Thorne, sometimes known as 'Babe'!" He threw out his chest, but the cowboy still looked puzzled.

"Did you come through Geronimo," inquired Babe, returning to the attack, "and never heard of me? Well then, Pardner, I'll have to put you wise – I'm Angevine Thorne, the Champion Booze-fighter of Arizona!" He dropped back to his pose and the cowboy contemplated him with grave curiosity.

"Mr. Thorne," he said, holding out his hand, "my name is Dalhart – Pecos Dalhart, from Texas – and I'm proud to make your acquaintance. Won't you have a drink on the strength of it?"

"Thank you just as much," replied Mr. Thorne, affably, "but I've sworn off. I've been the greatest booze-fighter of Arizona for twenty years, but I've sworn off. Never, never, will I let another drop of liquor pass my lips! I have been sentenced to the Geronimo jail for life for conspicuous drunkenness; I have passed my days in riotous living and my nights in the county jail, but the love of a good mother has followed me through it all and now I am going to quit! I'm saving up money to go home."

"Good for you," commented Pecos Dalhart, with the good-natured credulity which men confer upon drunkards, "stay with it! But say, not to change the subject at all, where can I git something to eat around here? I'm ganted down to a shadder."

"You're talkin' to the right man, son," returned Babe, hustling out from behind the bar. "I'm one of the best round-up cooks that ever mixed the sour-dough – in fact, I'm supposed to be cookin' for Crit's outfit right now and he just saws this bar-keep job off on me between times, so's to tempt me and git my money – when I git drunk, you savvy. He's a great feller, Old Crit – one of the boys up the river has got a penny Crit passed off on him in the dark for a dime and he swears to God that pore Injun's head is mashed flat, jest from bein' pinched so hard. Pinch? W'y, he's like a pet eagle I had one time – every time he lit on my arm he'd throw the hooks into me – couldn't help it – feet built that way. An' holler! He'd yell Cree so you c'd hear him a mile if anybody tried to steal his meat. Same way with Crit. Old Man Upton over here on the Tonto happened to brand one of his calves once and he's been hollerin' about that maverick ever since. You've heard of this war goin' on up here, hain't you? Well that's just Old Crit tryin' to git his revenge. If he's burnt one U calf he's burnt a thousand and they ain't cowboys enough in Texas to hold up his end, if it ever comes to fightin'. This here is the cow-camp – throw yore horse in the corral over there and I'll cook up a little chuck – jest about to eat, myse'f."

CHAPTER II

GOOD EYE, THE MAVERICK KING

ANGEVINE THORNE was still talking mean about his boss when the cowboys came stringing back from their day's riding, hungry as wolves. At the first dust sign in the northern pass the round-up cook had piled wood on the fire to make coals and as the iron-faced punchers rode up he hammered on a tin plate and yelled: —

"Grub pile! Come a-runnin'!"

They came, with the dirt of the branding still on their faces and beards and their hands smeared with blood. Each in turn glanced furtively at Pecos Dalhart, who sat off at one side contemplating the landscape, grabbed a plate and coffee cup and fell to without a word. Last of all came Isaac Crittenden, the Boss, tall, gaunt, and stooping, his head canted back to make up for the crook in his back and his one good eye roving about restlessly. As he rode in, Pecos glanced up and nodded and then continued his industry of drawing brands in the dust. The Boss, on his part, was no more cordial; but after the meal was finished he took another look at the newcomer, spoke a few words with the cook, and strolled over for a talk.

"Howdy, stranger," he began, with a quick glance at the brands in the sand; "travellin' far?"

"Nope," responded Pecos, "jest up the trail a piece."

A shadow crossed the Boss's face – Upton's was "up the trail a piece" – but he did not follow that lead.

"Know any of them irons?" he inquired, pointing to the sand-drawings, which represented half the big brands between the Panhandle and the Gila.

"Sure thing," replied the cowboy, "I've run 'em."

"And burnt 'em, too, eh?" put in Crittenden, shrewdly; but Pecos Dalhart was not as young as he looked.

"Not on your life," he countered, warily, "that don't go where I come from."

"Of course not, of course not," assented the cowman, instantly affecting a bluff honesty, "and it don't go here, neither, if any one should inquire. A man's brand is his property and he's got a right to it under the law. I've got a few cows here myself – brand IC on the ribs – and I'd like to see the blankety-blank that would burn it. I'd throw 'em in the pen, if it was the last act. Where you travellin'?"

He jerked this out as a sort of challenge, and the cowboy rose to his feet.

"Upton's," he said briefly.

"Upton's!" repeated Crittenden, "and what do you figure on doin' up there?"

"Well, I heard he was a good feller to work for – thought I'd take on for a cow hand."

Pecos stated the proposition judicially, but as he spoke he met the glowering glance of Crittenden with a cold and calculating eye. The cattle-stealing war between John Upton of Tonto Basin and Old Crit of Verde Crossing was no secret in Arizona, though the bloody Tewkesbury-Graham feud to the north took away from its spectacular interest and reduced it to the sordid level of commercialism. It was, in fact, a contest as to which could hire the nerviest cowboys and run off the most cattle, and Pecos Dalhart knew this as well as Isaac Crittenden. They stood and glared at each other for a minute, therefore, and then Old Crit broke loose.

"Whoever told you that John Upton is a good feller is a liar!" he stormed, bringing his fist down into his hand. "He's jest a common, low-down cow-thief, as I've told him to his face; and a man that will steal from his friends will do anything. Now, young man, before we go any farther I want to tell you what kind of a reptile John Upton is. Him and me run our cattle over in Tonto Basin for years, and if we'd ever have any question about a calf or a orehanna I'd always say, 'Well, take 'im, John,' jest like that, because I didn't want to have no racket with a friend. But they's some people, the more you give in to 'em the more they run it over you, and they come a day when I had to put my foot down and say, 'No, that calf is mine,' and I put my iron on 'im right there. Now that calf was mine, you understand, and I branded him IC on the ribs, in the corral and before witnesses, accordin' to law, but about a week afterward when I come across that critter, John Upton had run a big U after my brand, makin' it ICU. Well, you may laugh, but that's no kind of a joke to play on a friend and I jest hopped down off'n my horse and run a figger 2 after it, making it ICU2; and about the time John Upton gits his funny ICU brand in the book I goes down and registers ICU2, goin' him one better. Now that's carryin' a joke pretty far, and I admit it, but Upton wasn't funnin'; that crooked-nose dastard had set out to steal my cows from the start and, seein' I'd euchered him on the ICU racket he went ahead and slapped a big J in front of my IC iron, and began branding my cows into what he called his Jay-Eye-See brand. Well, that settled it. I'm an honest man, but when a man steals cows from me I don't know any way to break even in this country but to steal back, and while he was putting his J's on my IC critters I jumped in and put IC2's on his U's until he was ready to quit. He's afraid to burn my brand now – he dassent do it – and so he's beginnin' to squeal because I've got 'im in the door; but say – " he beckoned with his head – "come over here by the corral, I want to talk to you."

Throughout this long tale of woe Pecos Dalhart had shown but scant interest, having heard it already, with variations, from Babe. According to that faithless individual Old Crit would steal fleas from a pet monkey and skin them for the hide and tallow; his favorite pastime, outside of cattle-rustling, being to take on cowboys and then hold out their pay, a rumor which caused Pecos Dalhart to regard him warily.

"Now say," began the Boss of Verde Crossing, as soon as they were out of hearing, "you don't need to go to that hoss-thief Upton in order to git a job. I'm always lookin' for the right kind of man, myself. Have you had any experience at this kind of thing?" He went through the dexterous pantomime of burning a brand through a blanket, but the cowboy only turned away scornfully.

"If I had I'd never be dam' fool enough to talk about it," he said.

"Oho!" observed Crit, rubbing the side of his nose slyly, "you're travelling for your health, are you?"

"No!" snarled the Texan. "The only people that are lookin' for me are tryin' to keep away from me, so you don't need to work that auger any deeper. Now, Mr. Crittenden, I'm a man of few words – what can I do for you?"

"We-ell," began the cowman, and once more he paused to meditate.

"Since you inquire," continued the cowboy, "I don't mind tellin' you that I'm travellin' for excitement – and to grab some money. If you've got any proposition that might appeal to me, spit it out – if not, they's no harm done."

"Well, wait a minute!" cried Old Crit, peevishly.

"My time's valuable," observed Pecos, sententiously. "You can trust me as good as I can trust you – mebby better. I don't hear nobody accuse you of being sure pay, but if I take your job I want you to remember that I draw my money at the end of every month or else I collect and quit. Now if you can jar that proposition out of your system, I'll listen to it."

"I guess you'll do," said the cowman, as if quieting his own misgivings. "I've got a little special work that I want done on the quiet, markin' over some cows and calves. The man that does it will have to hide out up in that rough country and I'll pay him – forty dollars."

"Eighty," said the Texan.

"W'y, I'm only payin' my round-up hands thirty," protested Crittenden, weakly; "I'll give you fifty, though."

"Eighty, cash," said the cowboy. "You'll make that on the first ten calves."