Part 5 (1/2)
Eagle River was only a cattle-yard station, a s.h.i.+pping-point for the mighty spread of rolling hills which make up the Bear Valley range to the north and the Grampa to the south. Aside from the post-office, it possessed two saloons, a store, a boarding-house or two, and a low, brown station-house. That was all, except during the autumn, when there was nearly always an outfit of cowboys camped about the corrals, loading cattle or waiting for cars.
On the day when this story opens, McCoy had packed away his last steer, and, being about to take the train for Kansas City, called his foreman aside.
”See here, Roy, seems to me the boys are extra boozed already. It's up to you to pull right out for the ranch.”
”That's what I'm going to try to do,” answered Roy. ”We'll camp at the head of Jack Rabbit to-night.”
”Good idea. Get 'em out of town before dark--every mother's son of 'em.
I'll be back on Sat.u.r.day.”
Roy Pierce was a dependable young fellow, and honestly meant to carry out the orders of his boss; but there was so little by way of diversion in Eagle, the boys had to get drunk in order to punctuate a paragraph in their life. There was not a disengaged woman in the burg, and bad whisky was merely a sad subst.i.tute for romance. Therefore the settlers who chanced to meet this bunch of herders in the outskirts of Eagle River that night walked wide of them, for they gave out the sounds of battle.
They could all ride like Cossacks, notwithstanding their dizzy heads, and though they waved about in their saddles like men of rubber, their faithful feet clung to their stirrups like those of a bat to its perch.
In camp they scuffled, argued, ran foot-races, and howled derisive epithets at the cook, who was getting supper with drunken gravity, using pepper and salt with lavish hand.
Into the midst of this hullabaloo Roy, the cow-boss, rode, white with rage and quite sober.
”I'll kill that old son of a gun one of these days,” said he to Henry Ring.
”Kill who?”
”That postmaster. If he wasn't a United States officer, I'd do it now.”
”What's the matter? Wouldn't he shuffle the mail fer you?”
”Never lifted a finger. '_Nothing_,' he barked out at me. Didn't even look up till I let loose on him.”
”What did he do then?”
”Poked an old Civil War pistol out of the window and told me to hike.”
”Which you did?”
”Which I did, after pa.s.sing him a few compliments. 'Lay down your badge,' I says, 'come out o' your den, and I'll pepper you so full of holes that your hide won't hold blue-joint hay.' And I'll do it, too, the old hound!”
”But you got out,” persisted Ring, maliciously.
”I got out, but I tell you right now he's got something coming to him.
No mail-sifter of a little two-for-a-cent town like Eagle is goin' to put it all over me that way and not repent of it. I've figured out a scheme to get even with him, and you have got to help.”
This staggered Henry, who began to side-step and limp. ”Count me out on that,” said he. ”The old skunk treated me just about the same way. I don't blame you; a feller sure has a right to have his postmaster make a bluff at shuffling the deck. But, after all--”
However, in the end the boss won his most trusted fellows to his plan, for he was a youth of power, and besides they had all been roiled by the grizzled, crusty old official, and were quite ready to take a hand in his punishment.
Roy developed his plot. ”We'll pull out of camp about midnight, and ride round to the east, sneak in, and surround the old man's shack, shouting and yelling and raising Cain. He'll come out of his hole to order us off, and I'll rope him before he knows where he's at; then we'll toy with him for a few minutes--long enough to learn him a lesson in politeness--and let him go.”
No one in the gang seemed to see anything specially humorous in this method of inculcating urbanity of manner, and at last five of them agreed to stand their share of the riot, although Henry Ring muttered something about the man's being old and not looking very strong.
”He's strong enough to wave a two-foot gun,” retorted Roy, and so silenced all objection.