The Heart of the Range Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  CHANGE OF PLAN

  "It's a long way to Arizona," offered Racey Dawson, casually--toocasually.

  Swing Tunstall's bristle-haired head jerked round. Swing bent twosuspicious eyes upon his friend. "You just find it out?" he queried.

  "No, oh, no," denied Racey. "I've been thinking about it some time."

  "Thinking!" sneered Swing. "That's a new one--for you."

  "Nemmine," countered Racey. "It ain't catchin'--to _you_."

  "_Is_ that so?" yammered Swing, now over his head as far as reparteewas concerned. "Is _that_ so? What you gassing about Arizona forthisaway? You gonna renig on the trip?"

  "I'll bet there's plenty of good jobs we can find right here inFarewell," dodged Racey. "_And_ vicinity," he amended. "Yep, Swing,old-timer, I'll bet the Bar S or the Cross-in-a-box would hire us justtoo quick. Shore they would. It ain't every day they get a chance at ajo-darter of a buster like--"

  "Like the damndest liar in four states meaning you," cut in Swing.

  "You're right," admitted Racey, promptly. "When I was speaking of ajo-darter I meant you, so I was a liar. I admit it. I might 'a' knownyou wouldn't appreciate my kind words. Besides being several otherthings, you're an ungrateful cuss. Gimme the makin's."

  "Smoke yore own, you hunk of misery. You had four extra sacks in yorewarbags this morning."

  "_Had_? So you been skirmishin' round my warbags, have you? How manyof those sacks did you rustle?"

  "I left two."

  "Two! Two! Say, I bought that tobacco myself for my own personal use,and not for a lazy, loafing, cow-faced lump of slumgullion to glom andsmoke. Why don't you spend something besides the evening now and then?Gawda-mighty, you sit on yore coin closer than a hen with one egg!I'll gamble that Robinson Crusoe spent more money in a week than youspend in four years. Two sacks of my smoking. You got a gall like ahoss. There was my extra undershirt under those sacks. It's a wonderyou didn't smouch that, too."

  "It didn't fit," replied Swing Tunstall, placidly constructing acigarette. "Too big. Besides, all the buttons was off, and if they'sanything I despise it's a undershirt without any buttons. Sort ofwandering off the main trail though, ain't we, Racey? We was talkingabout Arizona, wasn't we?"

  "We was not," Racey contradicted, quickly. "We was talking about a jobhere in Fort Creek County. T'ell with Arizona."

  "T'ell with Arizona, huh? You're serious? You mean it?"

  "I'm serious as lead in yore inwards. 'Course I mean it. Ain't I beensaying so plain as can be the last half-hour?"

  "You're saying so is plain enough. And so is the whyfor."

  "The whyfor?"

  "Shore, the whyfor. Say, do you take me for a damfool? Here you use upthe best part of two days on a trip I could make in ten hours goingslow and eating regular. Who is she, cowboy, who is she?"

  "What you talking about?"

  "What am I talking about, huh? I'd ask that, I would. Yeah, I wouldso. Is she pretty?"

  "Poor feller's got a hangover," Racey murmured in pity. "I kind o'thought it must be something like that when he began to talk so funny.Now I'm shore of it. You tie a wet towel round yore head, Swing, andtake a good pull of cold water. You'll feel better in the morning."

  "So'll I feel better in the morning if you jiggers will close yoretraps and lemme sleep," growled a peevish voice in the next room--onthe Main Street side.

  "As I live," said Racey in a tone of vast surprise, "there's somebodyin the next room."

  "Sounds like the owner of the Starlight," hazarded Swing Tunstall.

  "It is the owner of the Starlight," corroborated the voice, "and Iwanna sleep, and I wanna sleep _now_."

  "We ain't got any objections," Racey told him. "She's a fine, freecountry. And every gent is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuitof happiness, three things no home should be without."

  "Shut up, will you?" squalled the goaded proprietor of the StarlightSaloon. "If you wanna make a speech go out to the corral and don'tbother regular folks."

  "Hear that, Swing?" grinned Racey, and twiddled his bare toesdelightedly. "Gentleman says you gotta shut up. Says he's regularfolks, too. You be good boy now and go by-by."

  "_Shut up_!"

  "Here, here, Swing!" cried Racey, struck by a brilliant idea. "Whatyou doing with that gun?"

  "I--" began the bewildered Swing who had not even thought of his gunbut was peacefully sitting on his cot pulling off his boots.

  "Leave it alone!" Racey interrupted in a hearty bawl. "Don't you goholding it at the wall even in fun. It might go off. You can't tell.You're so all-fired careless with a sixshooter, Swing. Like enoughyou're aiming right where the feller's bed is, too," he added,craftily.

  Ensued then sounds of rapid departure from the bed next door. A doorflew open and slammed. The parting guest padded down the stairs in hissocks, invoking his Maker as he went.

  "And that's the last of him," chuckled Racey.

  "Oh, you needn't think I'm forgetting," grumbled Swing Tunstall,sliding out of his trousers and folding them tidily beside his boots."You soft-headed yap, have you gotta let a woman spoil everything?"

  "Spoil everything?"

  "You don't think I'm going alla way to Arizona by myself, nobody totalk to nor nothing, do you? Well, I ain't. You can stick a pin inthat."

  Racey immediately sprang up, seized his friend's limp hand, and pumpedit vigorously. "Bless you for them kind words," he said. "I knew you'dstick by me. I knew I could depend on old Swing to do the right thing.To-morrow you and I will traipse out and locate us a couple of jobs."

  Swing doubled a leg, flattened one bare foot against Racey's chest,straightened the leg, and deposited Racey upon his own proper cot withforce and precision.

  "Don't you come honey-fuglin' round me," warned Swing. "And I didn'tsay anything about sticking by you, neither. And when it comes to theright thing you and me don't think alike a-tall. I--"

  "I wish you'd pull yore kicks a few," interrupted Racey, rubbing hischest. "You like to busted a rib."

  "Not the way you landed," countered the unfeeling Swing. "You'retryin' to get off the trail again. Here you and me plan her all out togo to--"

  "You bet," burst in Racey, enthusiastically. "We planned to go toeither the Bar S or the Cross-in-a-box and get that job. Shore we did.You got a memory like all outdoors. Swing. It plumb amazes me howclear and straight you keep everything in that head of yores. Yep, itshore does."

  Hereupon, in the most unconcerned manner, Racey Dawson began to blowsmoke rings toward the ceiling.

  Swing Tunstall sank sulkily down upon an elbow. "Whatsa use?" saidSwing Tunstall. "Whatsa use?"

  It was then that someone knocked upon their chamber door.

  "Come in," said Racey Dawson.

  The door opened and Lanpher's comrade of the attractive smile and theruthless profile walked into the room. He closed the door withoutnoise, spread his legs, and looked upon the two friends silently.

  "I heard you talking through the wall," he said in a studiedly lowtone, a tone that, heard through a partition, would have been but anindistinguishable murmur.

  "Hearing us talk through walls seems to be a habit in this hotel,"commented Racey, tactfully following the other's lead in lowness oftone.

  "I couldn't help hearing," apologized the stranger--he was vestlessand bootless. Evidently he had been on the point of retiring when thespirit moved him to visit his fellow-guests. "I'd like to talk toyou."

  "You're welcome," said Racey, hospitably yanking his trousers from theonly chair the room possessed. "Sit down."

  The stranger sat. Racey Dawson, sitting on the bed, his knees on alevel with his chin, clasped his hands round his bare ankles andaccorded the stranger his closest attention. To the casual observer,however, Racey looked uncommonly dull and sleepy, even stupid. But nottoo stupid. Racey possessed too much native finesse to overdo it.

  It was apparent that the stranger did not recognize him. Which was notsurprising. For, at the Dale ranch, Racey h
ad been wearing all hisclothes and a beard of weeks. Now he was clean-shaven and attired innothing but a flannel shirt. True, the stranger must have heard himsinging to Miss Dale. But a singing voice is far different from aspeaking voice, and Racey had not uttered a single conversational wordin the stranger's presence. Now he had occasion to bless this happychance.

  Swing Tunstall, slow to take a cue, and still suffering with thesulks, continued to lie quietly, his head supported on a bent arm, andsmoke. But he watched the stranger narrowly.

  The stranger tilted back his chair, and levering with his toes,teetered to and fro in silence.

  "I heard you say you were looking for a job in the morning," thestranger said suddenly to Racey.

  "You heard right," nodded Racey.

  "Are you dead set on working for the Bar S or the Cross-in-a-box?"

  "I ain't dead set on working for anybody. Work ain't a habit witheither of us, but so long as we got to work the ranches with goodcooks have the call, and the Bar S and Richie's outfit have specialgood cooks."

  The stranger nodded and began to smooth down, hand over hand,his tousled hair. It was very thick hair, oily and coarse. Whensufficiently smoothed it presented that shiny, slick appearance somuch admired in the copper-toed, black walnut era.

  Not till each and every lock lay in perfect adjustment with itsneighbour did the stranger speak.

  "Cooks mean a whole lot," was his opening remark. "A good one can comemighty nigh holding a outfit together. Money ain't to be sneezed at,neither. Good wages paid on the nail run the cook a close second. Howwould you boys like to work for me?"

  The stranger, as he asked the question, fixed Racey with his blackeyes. The puncher felt as if a steel drill were boring into his brain.But he returned the stare without appreciable effort. Racey Dawson wasnot of those that lower their eyes to any man.

  "I take it," drawled Racey, "that you're fixing to install all thecomforts of home you were just now talking about--a good cook andbetter wages for the honest working-man?"

  "Naturally I am." The stranger's eyes shifted to Swing Tunstall'sface.

  "Yeah--naturally." Thus Racey Dawson. The stranger's eyes returnedquickly to Racey. There had been a barely perceptible pause betweenthe two words uttered by Racey Dawson. Pauses signify a great deal attimes. This might be one of those times and it might not. The strangercouldn't be sure. From that moment the stranger watched Racey Dawsoneven as the proverbial cat watches the mouse hole.

  Racey knew that the stranger was watching him. And he knew why. So hesmiled with bland stupidity and nodded a foolish head.

  "What wages?" he inquired.

  "Fifty per," was the reply.

  "Where?"

  "Southeast of Dogville--the Rafter H ranch."

  "The Rafter H, huh? I thought that was Haley's outfit."

  "I expect to buy out Haley," explained the stranger, smoothly. "Myname's Harpe, Jack Harpe. What may I call you gents?... Dawson _and_Tunstall, eh? I--"

  "Haley ain't much better than a nester," interrupted Racey. "He don'town more'n forty cows. What you want with two punchers for a smallbunch like that--and at fifty per?"

  "I know she ain't much of a ranch now," admitted Jack Harpe. "Buteverything has to have a beginning. I'm figuring on a right smartgrowth for the Rafter H within the next year or two."

  "Figuring on opposition maybe?" probed Racey Dawson.

  "You never can tell."

  "You can if you go to cutting any of Baldy Barbee's corners. Haley'slittle bunch never bothers Baldy none, but a man-size outfit so closeto the south thataway would shore give him something to think about.Then there's the Anvil ranch east of the B bar B. They'll begin toscratch their heads, you bet. Hall, too, maybe, although he is a goodways to the east."

  "She's all free range," said Jack Harpe. "I guess I got as good aright here as the next gent."

  "Providing you can make the next gent see yore side of the case,"suggested Racey.

  "Most folks are willing to listen to reason," stated Jack Harpe.

  "I ain't so shore," doubted Racey. "You ain't looked at the whole ofthe layout yet. How about the 88 ranch?"

  "'The 88?'" repeated Jack Harpe in a tone of surprise. "What'll I haveto do with the 88, I'd like to know?"

  "I dunno," said Racey, his eyes more stupid than ever. "I was justa-wonderin'."

  Jack Harpe laughed without a sound. It seemed to be a habit of his tolaugh silently.

  "You saw me with Lanpher, didn't you? Well, Lanpher and I are justfriends, thassall. My cattle won't graze far enough south to overlapon the 88 anywheres."

  "Nor the Bar S?" suggested Racey.

  "Nor the Bar S."

  "That's sensible." Thus Racey, watching closely Jack Harpe from underlowered lids.

  Did his last remark strike a glint from the other man's eyes? Hethought it did. Certainly Jack Harpe's eyes had narrowed suddenly andslightly.

  "Yeah," Jack Harpe said, "I ain't counting on having any fussing witheither the 88 or the Bar S. Of course Baldy Barbee and the Anvil aredifferent. Dunno how they'll take it. Dunno that I care--much."

  "Which is why you're payin' fifty per."

  Jack Harpe nodded. "Yep. Gotta be prepared for them fellers--BaldyBarbee and the Anvil outfit."

  "You're right," assented Racey Dawson. "Mustn't let 'em catch younapping. You would look foolish then, wouldn't you?" He broke off witha sounding laugh and slapped a silly leg.

  "How about it, gents?" inquired Jack Harpe. "Are you riding for me ornot?"

  "You wanting to know right now this minute?"

  "I don't have to know right now, because I won't be ready for you tobegin for two or three weeks, but knowing would help my plans a few. Igotta figure things out ahead."

  "Shore, shore. Let you know day after to-morrow, or sooner, maybe.How's that?"

  "Good enough. Remember yore wages start the day you say when, even ifyou don't begin work for a month yet. All I'd ask is for you to stayround town where I can get hold of you easy. G'night."

  With this the stranger slid from the chair, opened the door partway, and oozed into the hall. He closed the door without a sound.He regained his own room in equal silence. Racey did not hear theshutting of the other's door, but he heard the springs of the cotsqueak under Jack Harpe's weight as he lay down.

  Swing Tunstall framed a remark with his lips only. Racey Dawson shookhis head. The partition was too thin and Jack Harpe's ears were toolong and sharp for him to risk even the tiniest of whispers. With hishand he made the Indian sign for "to-morrow," stretched out his longlegs, yawned--and fell almost instantly asleep.