Part 88 (1/2)
He urged his horse on at a faster walk, and as soon as the slope lessened broke into a trot. At Trillium Covert they were galloping.
”You'll have to stop for dinner first,” Saxon said, as they neared the gate of Madrono Ranch.
”You stop,” he answered. ”I don't want no dinner.”
”But I want to go with you,” she pleaded. ”What is it?”
”I don't dast tell you. You go on in an' get your dinner.”
”Not after that,” she said. ”Nothing can keep me from coming along now.”
Half a mile farther on, they left the highway, pa.s.sed through a patent gate which Billy had installed, and crossed the fields on a road which was coated thick with chalky dust. This was the road that led to Chavon's clay pit. The hundred and forty lay to the west. Two wagons, in a cloud of dust, came into sight.
”Your teams, Billy,” cried Saxon. ”Think of it! Just by the use of the head, earning your money while you're riding around with me.”
”Makes me ashamed to think how much cash money each one of them teams is bringin' me in every day,” he acknowledged.
They were turning off from the road toward the bars which gave entrance to the one hundred and forty, when the driver of the foremost wagon hallo'd and waved his hand. They drew in their horses and waited.
”The big roan's broke loose,” the driver said, as he stopped beside them.
”Clean crazy loco--bitin', squealin', strikin', kickin'. Kicked clean out of the harness like it was paper. Bit a chunk out of Baldy the size of a saucer, an' wound up by breakin' his own hind leg. Liveliest fifteen minutes I ever seen.”
”Sure it's broke?” Billy demanded sharply.
”Sure thing.”
”Well, after you unload, drive around by the other barn and get Ben.
He's in the corral. Tell Matthews to be easy with 'm. An' get a gun.
Sammy's got one. You'll have to see to the big roan. I ain't got time now.--Why couldn't Matthews a-come along with you for Ben? You'd save time.”
”Oh, he's just stickin' around waitin',” the driver answered. ”He reckoned I could get Ben.”
”An' lose time, eh? Well, get a move on.”
”That's the way of it,” Billy growled to Saxon as they rode on. ”No savve. No head. One man settin' down an' holdin his hands while another team drives outa its way doin what he oughta done. That's the trouble with two-dollar-a-day men.”
”With two-dollar-a-day heads,” Saxon said quickly. ”What kind of heads do you expect for two dollars?”
”That's right, too,” Billy acknowledged the hit. ”If they had better heads they'd be in the cities like all the rest of the better men.
An' the better men are a lot of dummies, too. They don't know the big chances in the country, or you couldn't hold 'm from it.”
Billy dismounted, took the three bars down, led his horse through, then put up the bars.
”When I get this place, there'll be a gate here,” he announced. ”Pay for itself in no time. It's the thousan' an' one little things like this that count up big when you put 'm together.” He sighed contentedly. ”I never used to think about such things, but when we shook Oakland I began to wise up. It was them San Leandro Porchugeeze that gave me my first eye-opener. I'd been asleep, before that.”
They skirted the lower of the three fields where the ripe hay stood uncut. Billy pointed with eloquent disgust to a break in the fence, slovenly repaired, and on to the standing grain much-trampled by cattle.
”Them's the things,” he criticized. ”Old style. An' look how thin that crop is, an' the shallow plowin'. Scrub cattle, scrub seed, scrub farmin'. Chavon's worked it for eight years now, an' never rested it once, never put anything in for what he took out, except the cattle into the stubble the minute the hay was on.”
In a pasture glade, farther on, they came upon a bunch of cattle.
”Look at that bull, Saxon. Scrub's no name for it. They oughta be a state law against lettin' such animals exist. No wonder Chavon's that land poor he's had to sink all his clay-pit earnin's into taxes an'