Part 55 (2/2)

The didn't have any more use for sheep-herders 'n I have.”

This was the real Tank, all right. Once an idee took possession of him, it rode him rough shod till he keeled over with his tongue hangin' out.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

THE FINAL MOVES

We buried The by the side o' Tim Simpson. Horace insisted on makin' a coffin for him-fact was, he wanted to have a regular funeral, but we talked him out o' this; so he made a coffin himself and lined it with silk which Ty Jones had brought out for Janet to make dresses of. The Friar held some short services, but he didn't sing or preach any. Some way, the' didn't seem to be any need of it. After we had covered him over we stood around talkin' for quite a while; and then only turned away because the first rain we had had for months came rattlin' down from the mountains.

”Do you see that, now?” asked ol' Tank after we had reached the porch and were sittin' watchin' it come down in torrents.

”I'm not totally blind,” sez I.

”Well, I'm not superst.i.tious,” sez Tank; ”but I'm bettin' that he's had that tended to, himself. He wasn't one to forget his friends, and he knew 'at what we needed most was rain-so he's called attention to it the first chance he's had.”

Fact was, Tank was so everlastin' superst.i.tious that he spelt Tomas with an ”h” in it to keep from havin' thirteen letters in his full name; but it did seem queer about this rain, because they wasn't any sane man in the world who would have expected a rain just at this time. It's astonis.h.i.+n' how many curious things there is if a feller just takes notice of 'em.

The Friar and Ty had had a long talk the night 'at Promotheus slipped away, and the Friar had agreed to settle down at the ranch and do what he could for Ty. Ty wasn't thankful; but he hadn't much choice, so he behaved better 'n any one would have expected. The Friar wanted me to stay and be foreman for him; but I told him I had promised Jabez to come back as soon as I had got a good holt on myself again; and I intended to leave for the Diamond Dot the minute things were right at the Cross brand. The Friar didn't much trust Pepper Kendal for foreman; but the minute I thought it over, I saw that Olaf was the very man, and this suited the Friar to a T.

We brought the prisoners up to Ty and he told 'em how things were and advised 'em to adjust themselves to new conditions as fast as possible, and they all agreed to do it and went to work under Olaf.

The Friar knew a preacher at Laramie; so Horace gave Tillte Dutch the job o' goin' after him, and as soon as he came, the Friar and Janet were married, and then I made plans to hit the trail for the Diamond Dot.

Horace had made up his mind to build himself a cabin up at our old camp and he tried to hire me for life; but I had taken root at the Diamond, and when I explained things to him, he owned up I was right.

I suggested to Horace that ol' Tank Williams was the very man for him, and he admitted, when he came to look it over, that Tank would suit him a heap better for hired help 'n I would. He even went so far as to say he never could understand how it came 'at a stiff-necked man like ol' Jabez could put up with my independent ways. I told Horace the'

was a lot of things it wasn't necessary for him to understand, and then I whistled to Tank, and he came over and joined us.

Tank rolled the notion about in his head a while, and then he sez: ”Horace, I'll take ya up. We both got cured up of our nerves on the same trip, and ever since then I have to own that you've found favor in my sight; but the one thing 'at counts bigger 'n anything else, is the fact that, come what will, you'll never have any more hankerin' to be pestered by a lot o' sheep, than I will.”

Olaf started to get things ready for the round-up and us Diamond Dot boys, aside from ol' Tank, rode off home, where we found things in consid'able of a muddle. Durin' the three years previous I had been takin' more and more o' the responsibility onto my own shoulders, and ol' Cast Steel found himself purty rusty. We turned to and straightened things out, and then I settled down to the sober business o' handlin' a big outfit with a view on the future.

After this, I didn't do any more skitin' around than my peculiar nature seemed to insist on; but I did make out to pay the Cross brand a visit every once in a while. The Friar only intended to stay long enough to get things to slidin' easy; and then he and Janet were to go back East and work among the city poor; but the chance never came.

Janet grew perfectly strong and well again; but the city allus made her nervous to return to the mountains, and they were kept so busy on the ranch that the years slipped away without bein' noticed.

Ty's backbone was all in one piece, and solid-except where Olaf had unjointed it-and it took years to wear him down to friendliness; but when the Friar's first baby got big enough to creep, the contrary little cuss took more interest in ol' Ty Jones, than in airy other thing the' was on the place. I never saw any one yet who didn't feel flattered at a baby's endors.e.m.e.nt-though why a baby should be supposed to actually have better judgment than grown folks has never been fully explained to me yet.

Horace kept his word to The, and he did all he could for Ty. Ty didn't like him and he didn't like Ty; but Ty was human, and it made him lonely to sit in one spot all the time, so that while he refused to be thankful, he gradually got to relyin' on Horace; and Horace was also human, and the more he did for Ty on The's account, the more fond he grew of Ty on his own account. He got him a wheelchair first, and this was a big help. Then he fixed up a trapeze for Ty to practice on. Ty got mad about this and said that cripple though he was, no man could make a monkey of him; but one night when he couldn't sleep he practiced on it, and it gave him a lot o' relief.

The name of the Chinaman was Yuen Yick, and he thought 'at Ty Jones was some sort of a G.o.d, and fair wors.h.i.+pped him-every one o' Ty's men swore by him, even after he turned decent. Ty used to abuse the c.h.i.n.k all he could and it pleased 'em both; and the c.h.i.n.k saw that Horace meant well by Ty, so he kept Horace posted on just what Ty did and thought; and Horace had Janet make some flannel bricks filled with cotton for Ty to throw at the Chinaman. Ty got a lot o' satisfaction out o' these bricks, and the exercise helped him too.

Next, Horace had a wide porch built all around Ty's house, and he swung ropes with rings on 'em from the ceiling, an equal distance apart; and Ty got so he could swing from ring to ring, and go all around the house, and climb ladders, and as the boy got big enough to become tyrannical, which was soon enough, goodness knows, he made Ty do all manner o' stunts-throw b.a.l.l.s and juggle 'em, tell stories, draw pictures-Well, the fact was, that between 'em all, they kept Ty so active that first we knew, the devil had all been worked out of him and he was as civilized as any of us. One day when Horace was down visitin' him, he sent in the c.h.i.n.k and had him bring out a set of ivory figures, carved most beautiful and called chess-men; and he dared Horace to play him a game, and this was the final surrender of the old Ty Jones.

He was a well edicated man, Ty was; and each winter when he had left the ranch, he had gone to some big city where he had pertended to be a regular swell. No one ever found out just what had soured him so on the world, for his nature was to be sociable to a degree. He said that no one knew the cause of it except ol' Promotheus, and it was mightily to his credit that he hadn't devulged the secret.

Ty strung out his surprises quite a while. It seems he was also an inventor, and had patents which brought him in a lot o' money. He had found this cave and had just widened it where widenin' was necessary, and had built his cabin above it. The floor was double and filled with earth, and the fake drawers were also filled with earth, so 'at no sound would show that it was hollow underneath. The drawers swung on a steel piller which could be worked from above by a rope which hung back o' his bookcase and from below by a lever.

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