The Oregon daily journal., May 07, 1916, Page 56, Image 56

THE SUNDAY FICTION MAGAZINE, MAY 7, 1916.
rrabbed beneath the sacks and blankets racking him. He dispatched one of the
for the cases of .tobacco.
Long Collins,, tobacco messenger from
the San Gabriel outfit, who rode with the
longest stirrups west of the Mississippi,
delved with an arm like the tongue of a
wagon. He caught something hardei than
a blanket and pulled out a fearful thing
a shapeless, muddy bunch of leather tied
together with wire and twine. From its
ragged end, like the head and claws of a
disturbed turtle, protruded human toes.
Mexican boys to the ranchhouse for a
glass of whisky. Curly gulped it down;
and into his eyes came a brief, grateful
glow as human as the expression In the
eye of a faithful setter dog.
"Thanky, boss," he said quietly.
"You're thirty mtles from a railroad
and forty miles from a saloon," said Ranse.
Curly fell back weakly against the
steps.
kittens. Bight miles farther east shone a back to the house Curly called. to him from;
faint star .that appeared to have dropped the wagon-shed.
below the horizon. Night riders, who often The tramp sat on his cot, swinging his
steered their course by it, knew it to be feet and smoking. j
the light in the Rancho de los Olmos.
In ten minutes Yenna Curtis galloped to
the tree on her sorrel pony Dancer. The
two leaned and clasped hands heartily.
"I ought to have ridden nearer your
home," said Ranse. "But you never will
let me."
Yenna laughed. And in the soft light
Here's a howllnj grasshoppers!"
Up from his long slumber popped Curly
like some vile worm from its burrow. He
clawed his way out and sat blinking like a
disreputable, drunken owl. His face was
'Since you are here," continued the
"Who-ee!" yelled Long Collins. "Ranse, ranchman, "come along with me. We can't you could see her strong white teeth and
are you a-packin' around of corpuses? turn you out on the prairie. A rabbit fearless eyes. No sentimentality there. In
might tear you to pieces." spite of the moonlight, the odor of the
He conducted Curly to a large shed ratamas, and the admirable figure of
where the ranch vehicles were kept. There Ranse Truesdell, the lover. But sho was
he spread out a canvas cot and brought there, eight miles from her home to meet
blankets. him.
as bluish-red and puffed and seamed and "I don't suppose you can sleep," said "How often have I told you, Ranse,"
cross-lined as the cheapest round steak of Ranse, "since you've been pounding your she said, "that I am your halfway girl?
ear for twenty-four hours. But ycu can Always halfway."
camp here till morning. I'll have Pedro "Well?" said Ranse, with a question In
fetch you up some grub." his tones.
"Sleep!" said Curly. "I can sleep a
week. Say, sport, have you got a coffin
nail on you?"
the butcher. Mis eyes were swollen slits;
his nose a picklied beet; his hair would
have made the wildest thatch of a Jack-in-the-box
look Sike the satin poll of a
Cleo de Merode. The rest of him was
scarecrow done to the life.
Ranse jumped down from his seat and
looked at his strange cargo with wide
open eyes.
"Here, you maverick, what are you do
ing in my wagon? How did you get In
there?"
The punchers gathered around in de
light. For the time they had forgotten to
bacco. Curly looked around him slowly in every
direction. He snarled like a Scotch terrier
through his ragged beard.
IV.
FIl-TY miles had Ransom Truesdell
driven that day. And yet this is what
he did.
Old "Kiowa" Truesdell sat in his great
wicker chair reading by the light of an
immense oil lamp. Ranse laid a bundle of
newspapers fresh from town' at his elbow.
"Back, Ranse?" said the old man, look
ing up.
"Son," old "Kiowa" continued. "I've
"Where is this?" he rasped through ids been thinking. all day about a certaln mat-
parched throat. "It's a damn farm in an
old field. Wliat'd you bring me here for
say? Did I say I wanted to come here?
What are you Reubs rubberin' at hey?
O'wan, or I'll punch some of yer faces."
"Drag him out, Collins," said Ranse.
Curly took a slide and felt the ground
ri.se up and collide with his shoulder
blades. He sot up and sat on the steps of
the store shivering from outraged nerves,
hugging his knees and sneering. Taylor
lifted out a case of tobacco and wrenched
oft Its top. Six cigarets began to glow,
bringing peace and forgiveness to Sam.
"How'd you come In my wagon?" re
peated Ranse, this time in a voice that
drew a reply. Curly recognized the tone.
He had heard it used by freight brakemen
and large persons in blue carrying clubs.
"Me?" he grovvUd. "Oh, was you talkin'
to me? Why, I was on my way to the
Menger, but my valet had forgot to pack
my pajamas. So I crawled into that wagon
in the wagon yard see? I never told you
to bring me out to this bloomin' farm
tee?"
ter that we have talked about. I want you
to tell me again. I've lived for you. I've
fought wolves and Indians and worse
white men to protect you. You never had
any mother that you can remember. I've
taught you to shoot straight, ride hard,
and live clean. Later on I've worked to
pile up dollars that'll be yours. You'll be
a rich man, Ranse, when my clfunk goes
out. I've made you. I've licked you into
shape like a leopard cut licks its cubs.
You don't belong to yourself you've got
to be a Truesdell first. Now, is there to bo
any more nonsense about this Curtis girl?"
"I'll tell you once more," said Ranse
slowly. "As I am u Truesdell and as you
are my father, I'll never marry a Curtis."
"Good boy." said old "Kiowa." "You'd
better go get some supper."
Ranse went to the kitchen at the rear
of the house. Pedro, the Mexican cook,
sprang up to bring the food he was keep
ing warm In the stove.
"Just a cup of coffee, Pedro," he said,
and drank it standing. And then:
"There's a tramp on a cot in the wagon
shed. Take him something to eat. Better
"What is it, Mustang?" asked Poky
Rodgers, almost forgetting to smoke in his make jt enough for two."
ecstasy. "What do it live on?" Ranse walked out toward the jacals.
"It's a galliwampus. Poky," said Mus- boy came running;
.tang. it s tne tn.ng mat noners wu- ..Manuel, can you catch Vaminos, in the one of the upper drawers.. Ranse took it
walloo up in eiium trees in tne low iitte pasture, for me?"
grounds of nights. I don't know if it "Why not, senor? I saw him near the
bites." puerta but two hours past. He bears a
"I did," said Yenna, with almost a sigh.
"I told him after dinner, when I thought
he would be in a good humor. Did you
ever wake up a lion, Ranse, with the mis
taken idea that he would be a kitten? He
almost tore the ranch to pieces. It's all
up. I love my daddy, Ranse, and I'm
afraid I'm afraid of him, too. He or
dered me to promise that I'd never marry
a Truesdell. I promised. That's all. What
luck did you have?"
"The same," said Ranse slowly. "I prom
ised him that his son would never marry
a Curtis. Somehow I couldn't go against
him. He's mighty old. I'm sorry, Yenna."
The girl leaned in her saddle and laid
one band on Ranse's, on the horn of his
saddle.
"I never thought I'd like you better for
giving me up," she said ardently, "but I
do. I must ride back now, Ranse. 1
slipped out of , the house and saddled
Dancer myself. Good night, neighbor."
"Good night," said Ranse. "Ride care
fully over them badger holes."
They wheeled and rode away In op
posite directions. Yenna, turned In her
saddle and called clearly:
"Don't forget I'm your halfway girl,
Ranse."
"Damn all family feuds and Inherited
scraps," said Ranse vindictively to the
breeze.
Ran.se turned his horse Into the small
pasture and went to his own room. Jrle
opened the lowest drawer of an old bureau
to get out the packet of letters that Yenna
had written him one summer when she
had gone to Mississippi for a visit. The
drawer stuck, and he yanked at it savage
ly as a man'will. It came out of the bu
reau, and bruised both his shins as a
drawer will. An old, folded yellow letter
without an envelope fell from somewhere
probably from where it had lodged in
"No, it ain't. Mustang," volunteered
Long Collins. "Them galliwampuses has
fins on their backs, , and eighteen toes.
This here is a hicklesnifter. It lives under
the ground and eat cherries. Don't stand
so close to it. It wipes out villages with
one stroke of its prehensile tall."
Sam. the cosmopolite, who called bar
tenders in San Antone by their first name,
stood in the door. He was a better zoolo
gist. "Well, ain't that a Willie for your whls-
drag-rope."
"Get him and saddle him as quick as
you can."
"Prontito, senor,"
Soon, mounted on "Vaminos, Ranse
leaned in the saddle, pressed with his
to the lamp and read it curiously.
Then he took his hat and walked to one
of the Mexican jacals.
"Tia Juana," he said,
talk with you a while."
An old, old Mexican
haired and wonderfully
from a stool.
"Sit down," said Ranse
'I would like to
woman, white
wrinkled, rose
removing his
knees, and galloped eastward past the hat and takmg the one chalr ln the jacal.
store, where sat Sam trying his guitar In
the moonlight.
Vaminos shall have a word Vaminos
the good dun horse. The Mexicans, who
have a hundred names for the colors of a
horse, calleS him gruyo. He was a mouse-
kers?" he commented. "Where'd you dig colored, slate-colored, flea-bitten roan-dun.
up the hobo, Ranse? Goin' to make an
auditorium for Inbreviates out of the
ranch V
If you can conceive it. Down his back
from his mane to his tail went a line of
black. He would live forever; and sur-
"Say," said Curly, from whose pa no- veyors have not laid off as many miles in
the world as he could travel in a day.
Eight miles east of the Cibolo ranch
house Rasse loosened the pressure of his
plied breast all shafts of wit fell blunted.
"Any of you kiddln' guys got' a drink on
you? Have your fun. Say, I've been "hit
tin the stuff till I dqh't know straight up,"
He turned to Ranse.' "Say, you shanghaied rataraa tree. The yellow. ratama blossoms
me on your d d old prairie schooner did showered fragrance; that would have un-
I tell you to drive me to a farm? I want done the roses of France. The4noon made
a drink. I'm goiriV all to little pieces, the earth a great concave bowl with a
What's doin'?"' crystal sky for a lid. In a glade five jack-
"Who am I, Tia Jnana?" he asked, speak
ing Spanish.
"Don Ransom, our good friend and em
ployer. Why do you ask?" answered the
old woman.
"Tia Juana, who am I?" he repeated.
A frightened look came in the old wom
an's face. She fumbled with her black
shawl.
"Who am I, Tia Juana?" said Ranse
once more.
"Say, sport,", he grumbled. "This is no"
way to treat a man after kidnapin' him. -1
went up to the store and borrowed a razor "
from that flash guy and had a shave. But
that ain't all a man needs. Say can't you
loosen up for about three fingers more of "
that booze? I never asked you to bring
me to your d d farm."
"Rtnnrl nn out here in the lieht " snld
Ranse.
Curly got up sullenly and took a step or '
two.
His face, now shaven smooth, seemed
transformed. His hair had been combed.
and it fell back from the right aide of his .
forehead with a peculiar wave. The moon
light charitably softened the ravages of
drink; and his aquiline, well-shaped nose;
and small, square cleft chin almost gave
distinction to his looks. ''
Ranse sat on the foot of the cot and :
looked at him curiously.
"Where did you come from have you -
got any home or folks anywhere?"
"Me? Why, I'm a dook," said Curly. u
"I'm Sir Reginald offj cheese it. No; I
don't know anything about my ancestors.
I've been a tramp ever since I can remem-.
ber. Say, old pal, are you going to set 'era ;
up again tonight or not?"
"You answer my questions and maybe
I will. How did you come to be a tramp?"
"Me?" answered Curly. "Why, I adopt
ed that profession when I was an infant.
Case of had to. First thing I can remem
ber, I belonged to a big, laty hobo called
Beefsteak Charlie. He sent me around to
houses to beg. I wasn't hardly big enough
to reach the latch of a gate."
"Did he ever tell you how he got you?"
asked Ranse.
"Once when he was sober he said he
bought me for an old nix-shooter and six
bits from a band of drunken Mexican
sheen-shearers. But what's the dlff?
That's all I know."
"All right," said Ranse. "I reckon
you're a maverick for certain. I'm coins
to put the Rancho Cibolo brand on you.
I'll start you to work out In one of the
camps tomorrow."
"Work!" sniffed Curly disdainfully.
"What do you take me for? Do you think:
I'd chase cows, and hop-sklp-and-jump
around after crazy sheep like that oink
and vellow ruv at the store nava thAiut
Reubs do? Forget it."
"Oh, you'll like it when you get used to
it," said Ranse. "Yes, I'll send you up one
more drink by Pedro. I think you'll make
a first-class cowpuncher before I ' get
through with you."
"Me?" said Curly. "I pity the cows you
set me to chaperon. They can go chase
themselves. Don't forget my nightcap,
please, boss."
Ranse paid a visit to the store before
going to the house. Sam Revell was tak.
ing off his tan shoes regretfully and pre
paring for bed.
- "Any of the boys from the San Gabriel
camp riding in early In the morning?"
asked Ranse.
"Long Collins," said Sam briefly. "For
the mall."
'Tell him." said Ranse, "to take that
tramp out to camp with him and keep him
till I get there."
V.
Cl'RLY was sitting on his blankets In
the San Gabriel ramp cursing talent I
edly when Ranse Truesdell rode up and
dismounted on the next afternoon. The
cowpuncher were Ignoring the stray. He
was grimy with dust and black dirt. His
clothes were making their last stand In
favor of the conventions.
Ranse went up to Buck Rabb, the camp
"Thirty-two years I have lived on the boas, and spoke briefly.
"He's a plumb buzzard," said Buck.
Rancho Cibolo," said Tia Juana. "I
knees, and Vaminos stopped under a big thought to be burled under the coma mott "He won't work, and he's the low-downest,
beyond the garden oeiore tnese tnings passe l 01 inhumanity i ever see. I dldn t
should be known. Close the door, Don know what you wanted done with him.
Ransom, and I will speak. I see in your Ranse, so I Just let him set. That seems
lace tnat you Know. to buii mm. ne m reen conaemnea to.
An hour lianse spent oenina i ia j u- aeain uy me ooys a aozen umes, out 1
Ranse saw that the tramp's nerves were rabbits leaped and played together like ana's closed door. As he was on his way
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