Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox - Ultimate Collection - Western Classics & Historical Novels

"So-long."

She fled across the uneven ground and disappeared. Tom returned thoughtfully to his companion, and they cruised homeward. Lispenard held his own counsel as long as he could, which was no great length of time:

"Well, what's it all about? What's the secret?"

"Nothing," drawled Tom.

"Oh, by gad! Tommy, I'm truthful when I say this Western taciturnity galls me like the devil! Have you forgotten all the old fraternal confidences?"

Tom Gillette had not meant to reveal the conviction that had matured in his head over the long northern drive. Nevertheless, it slipped out now. "Blondy, the time for that is all behind us. The time and the place as well. Men change—all things change."

"I have sensed as much," replied Lispenard drily. "A severance of diplomatic relations, as it were?"

"No, not at all," said Tom. "Our past four years were years for talking. From now on it is the time to be doing. God knows there's plenty of that ahead."

Lispenard relapsed into one of his sullen spells; his big lips were splayed in a kind of a pout and his whole face mirrored dissatisfaction. At the chuck wagon he abruptly left Tom and had nothing more to do with him all the day. As for Tom, he regretted speaking out as he had done, and he would have made amends—save that he couldn't make headway against the conviction that his one-time friend was in the process of a mighty transformation; that the man's impulses for good and bad—always hitherto more or less evenly matched—were being forged by some kind of internal fire. The dominant traits would triumph, the lesser ones would crumble. Tom was afraid of the result; he had more than once wished Lispenard were back East where the restraints of a more complex social order would take hold.

Quite promptly more important affairs put the man from his mind. Foremost was the matter of getting some legal claim to water rights along the river. Next was to get trace of San Saba. Then cabins and pens were yet to be built against fall and winter. Leaving Quagmire in charge of this last chore, Tom struck out for town, thirty miles north, early next morning. The route led him down the river until he was within Wyatt's new range, then across a ford and over the undulating prairie. By eleven he was at Nelson, seeking out a surveyor.

Nelson was a cattle town on the boom. Along the solitary street ranged a double row of buildings not yet old enough to have lost the sweet, aromatic pine smell, and at the same time old enough to have received a baptism of bullet holes through the battlemented fronts. But one structure boasted paint; and naturally enough this was the saloon. At the end of the street three or four tents were up; beyond marched the prairie. Railroad tracks skirted one side, and a depot squatted a hundred yards distant, a little removed from which were rows of cattle-loading pens. Considering the size of the place, it seemed crowded this day as Tom Gillette laid his reins over a rack and cruised slowly through the street; crowded with every taciturn and picturesque type of the frontier. Cow hands, nesters, trappers, and Indians strayed from the adjoining reservations, each man wearing whatever suited his taste, from buckskins to four-point Hudson Bay blanket capotes.

Tom finally found a surveyor and described his location along the river. "What I want is the section, township, and range lines, so that I can find them on the land-office plats. After that I want you to come over to my place and lay off the corners."

The surveyor, whose skin was like a piece of yellow cloth long faded in the sun, explored his maps. "That ford you say is in front of your place must be Sixty Mile Crossing. And sure it is. Well, then"—writing a set of figures on the back of an envelope—"there will be your claim. 'Tis the fourth man you are who has come to me this week on the same business along that river. The country is settlin' up, make no mistake. You understand, of course, that this land all lies along the river. Back from it the country is open and unsurveyed. You've got only squatter's right there."

"That's all that's necessary just so I get legal claim to my water right. The rest is safe enough on squatter's right."

"To be sure—to be sure," relpied the surveyor. There was a lingering note of doubt in his words, and Tom tried to pin him down.

"Well, where's the catch?"

"Ah," replied the surveyor, winking. "And where is the catch? I'd like to know it as well. I'm sayin' nothin', mind me. Uncle Sammy is a grand uncle, but it happens sometimes he's short- sighted. Some o' his nephews an' adopted sons ain't above cheatin' him. Never mind. You want me to come out, then? All right—I'm all-fired busy, but I'll make it tomorrow."

"Good enough," said Tom, rising. But the surveyor gave him a sly glance, murmuring:

"D'you happen to know who might be your neighbour on the north side o' the river?"

"Directly across from me, you mean?"

"Directly across? I can see you ain't long in the country. Not only directly across from you, but in every direction your eye might happen to extend. Up and down the north side a good hundred miles. Mebbe fifty miles in depth. Dunno, eh? I will be tellin' you."

His mouth closed like a rusty trap. Tom fancied he could even hear the surveyor's jaw muscles squeak with the sudden action. Through the open door of the surveyor's office walked a compactly built fellow wearing Eastern clothes and a stiff-brimmed hat. His was a pleasant face—or one upon which pleasantness had been forcibly imprinted. There was nothing much about him to catch the eye, no singularities of habit or gesture. He looked at the pair with a faint smile, raising his arm.

"Hope I'm not intruding."

The surveyor's left eyelid, turned away from the newcomer, fluttered at Tom. "Now, it's the same old politeness, Mister Grist. I was just tellin' this man he'd be havin' you for a neighbour. Might as well be gettin' acquainted. Mister Gillette—another Texan—will be facin' you at Sixty Mile Ford from now on until..."

"Until what, you mysterious Irishman?" asked the newcomer, still amiable.

But the surveyor shook his head. "I'd better be mindin' my own business. Sure. Mister Gillette, this gentleman's name is Barron Grist. He's resident agent—ain't it a fancy name for a foreman?—of the P.R.N. Land Company. It's the P.R.N. your eyes will get weary with lookin' at on the north side of the Little Mizzoo."

Tom shook hands with Grist, the man offering him a limp grip. "You Texans certainly are swarming north this season, Here we were, a wild set in a wild land. And all of a sudden here comes the great migration. Oh, well, we couldn't expect to have it to ourselves forever. Who led you Texans out of Israel?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," said Tom. "Our Southern prophets have none to sing their songs."

"Singin', ha!" grunted the surveyor. "Little good singin' will do a livin' soul in this country."

Grist laughed. "Don't let this purveyor of scandal influence you too much, Mr. Gillette. I bear a bad name in this country, and he'll tell you many things. But as a neighbour I wish you luck. If at any time I can help you..." Without finishing the sentence he nodded and backed out. The surveyor winked portentously.

"Mark him well," said he. "Whether you want it or not, you'll have business with him. Oh, yes."

"I didn't know land was valuable enough to speculate in," offered Tom.

The surveyor passed him another knowing glance. "Land? Well, it ain't land the P.R.N. profits by. It's cattle. Eastern money back of it. They've got a beef contract with the gov'ment. Deliverin' all their stuff to the Indian agencies. The redskins have got to be fed now that we've licked 'em and corralled 'em on reservations."

"Sounds profitable," mused Tom.

"It's rotten with profit," broke in the surveyor with a trace of energy. "Now, you'll be thinkin' to try that scheme, eh? Forget it. Takes a pull to land a beef contract. No, it's cattle—not land. But they're hell on wheels to get all the range they can. I'm tellin' you. Beg, borrow, and steal. How they get title to all this unsurveyed stuff is beyon' me. But they do. An' moreover, they put dummy homesteaders on every piece they can north o' the river. See?"