Read Ebook: Ross Grant Tenderfoot by Garland John Boyer Ralph L Ralph Ludwig Illustrator

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Ebook has 1628 lines and 67333 words, and 33 pages

owner peered at Weston curiously. Then, evidently understanding his closed eyes to mean sleep, the stranger backed out precipitately and sat down on the bench outside the door. From this vantage point he peered around the jamb from time to time eyeing Ross and his patient in turn.

"Good-evening," said the former as the stranger showed no signs of speaking.

The shaggy head appeared in the doorway and nodding briefly, was withdrawn, just as Hank, coming with the water, called, "Well, Sheepy, what's the latest word up your way?"

It was Luther, otherwise "Sheepy," the herder whose wagon crowned the adjacent hill. He was Hank's daily caller.

"There ye are, Doc," exclaimed Hank entering with the water. "Puddin' fer Weston, and flapjacks 'n' coffee fer you and me with cabbage 'n' spuds thrown in. Fill up."

It was a menu which was not varied to any great extent in the days which followed, strange days for "Doc Tenderfoot," as Hank called Ross.

Every night at midnight one of the two stages plying between Cody and Meeteetse stopped at the stage camp for supper and horse feed. Every noon the other stage stopped for dinner on its return trip. Between times, horsemen came and went, occasionally, men from the ranches on Wood River and the Grey Bull, miners "packing" their beds behind them, prospectors going out of the mountains for the winter, and every day during the first week there was Sheepy. Sheepy usually came toward night when his flock had been driven in from the range and rounded up by the faithful shepherd dog near the canvas-topped wagon.

One day, the last of the week, after Ross had had a particularly trying time with his patient, he left the latter asleep, and going outside, sat on the bench in the sunshine watching Hank who was repairing the corral. Presently Sheepy joined him, first refreshing himself, as usual, with a long look at the snoring Weston.

"Once I seen a feller that rode like him and looked like him, only his hair and beard," Sheepy announced finally in a hoarse whisper. "I seen 'im ridin' in ahead of th' stage that night, and I thought 'twas th' other chap."

Ross listened without interest. Sheepy filled a pipe with deliberation and lighted it. Then, clasping a worn knee in both hands he spoke again out of the corner of his mouth.

"That feller had hair light as tow and his face clean of beard, but he rode the same and his eyes was the same. He was a puncher off the cattle ranges. Used to ride past my wagon alone about once a week headin' fer town. Went in the edge of the evenin' always."

"And where were you?" asked Ross still without interest.

"Down in Oklahomy. I was herdin' sheep fer old man Quinn."

Ross looked at Sheepy with new interest. "I heard the men on the train talking about old man Quinn and the sheep that he lost. Were you there at that time?"

Sheepy nodded. "I sartain was. That's two years gone by."

"And did you see what was going on--driving the sheep into the river, I mean?" questioned Ross eagerly.

The sheep-herder shook his grizzled head. "It wa'n't off my range that the sheep was drove, but another feller's called Happy. He seen there was four men done it. It was night--dark night, and they didn't stop to say howdy ner make any introductions. They shot Happy's dog and got away over the bluff with a thousand sheep. They was drunk, all of 'em, but not too drunk not t' know what they was doin'. Old man Quinn got three of 'em. He's been after the other ever since."

"Do you think he'll be caught?"

Sheepy moved his shoulders helplessly. "Don't know. Old man Quinn he never lets up on a thing. Took 'im two years t' find three. Bet he don't give t'other up."

"Why did they drive the sheep over the bluff?" asked Ross.

Sheepy frowned. "Cattlemen claimed the sheep had crossed the dead line. Cattlemen are always claimin' that, and they push the line further and further in on the sheep and claim more of the range every year. They do here. They did down in Oklahomy. The sheep owners and cattlemen had a row at the big cattle round-up on the North Fork. It was after the round-up, when the cow punchers was feelin' pretty gay and let themselves loose, that them four drove old man Quinn's sheep over the bluff."

There was a pause, and then Sheepy went back to the original subject. "The feller that looked like him and rode like him," jerking his thumb over his shoulder, "used to ride past when I was shakin' grub in my wagon. He used t' go grinnin' mostly and starin' at his hoss' ears. And he alus went with his fixin's on, tan chaps and a red silk 'kerchief 'round his neck and Indian gloves with these here colored gauntlets. Oh, he struck the trail in his good togs all right--bet he went t' see some girl 'r other!"

This was the last information that Ross received from Sheepy for several months. The following morning there arrived from Cody a supply wagon which replenished the sheep-herder's larder, and then, the sheep having eaten the range bare for miles around the dugout, the canvas-topped wagon was attached to the supply wagon and drawn to another hilltop ten miles away. With it went Sheepy only faintly regretting the loss of companionship at the dugout. The seven hundred sheep that his dog rounded up and drove in advance of the wagons were the companions with which he was best acquainted.

"It wouldn't ha' been a bad idee," Hank remarked when the last bleat died away in the distance, "if Sheepy could ha' stayed all winter. He ain't generally long on talk--none of them herders be--but he was some one t' have around, and once in a while his tongue breaks loose."

Ross drew a long breath and thought of Meadow Creek.

In the afternoon Hank resumed his repairs on the corral, leaving Weston asleep and Ross kneeling beside his medicine chest sorting its contents.

The sorting done, the boy arose noiselessly and closed the lid of the chest. Then, turning, he looked down on the head of the sleeper. For the first time he noticed that Weston's hair, thick and unkempt, was dull in color and had a dead look at variance with its evident health. Tiptoeing across the floor he bent over the recumbent man and gently raising a lock of his hair looked wonderingly at the roots. The sight caused him to utter an exclamation which disturbed the sleeper. He straightened himself and stepped back precipitately.

The hair was tow-colored at the roots.

THE FOURTH MAN

ROSS stood motionless until Weston, muttering and turning his head from side to side, gradually came to rest again and fell into a deeper sleep. Then the boy went outside and sat down on the bench.

"It's easy enough to put two and two together," he muttered.

Leaning forward, he dropped his elbows on his knees and taking his head between his hands, proceeded to do some adding satisfactory in its results. He longed for the presence of Sheepy. Now he would question him with interest on the subject of the puncher whose face was free from a beard and whose hair was tow color. He wanted more information on the subject of that cattle round-up and of the process of getting those three guilty cow punchers. Still, he believed that Sheepy had told him enough to make it clear that Weston was the fourth that old man Quinn was after.

"Some one that looked like Weston and rode like him," Ross enumerated the points in the evidence, "only the man in Oklahoma had no beard and his hair was tow color."

What was easier than to grow a beard--the hair was already accounted for--it had been tow-colored before its owner stained it a chestnut brown. And why should he have colored it unless for purposes of disguise? And why a disguise unless he was guilty of a crime such as driving old man Quinn's sheep into the North Fork?

At this point in his reasoning, another fact flashed into the boy's mind--the strange way in which Weston had acted about his name.

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Ross aloud and then checked his voice. "Probably he didn't want us to know his name, his real name," he thought. "How all that dovetails together. If I could only get hold of Sheepy now!"

On further reflection, however, he decided that Sheepy could throw no more light on the subject. It was evident that the herder did not know the name of the puncher who had ridden alone past his wagon, for he had not connected Weston's name with the other. Nor would Weston, if he were the same puncher, be likely to recognize Sheepy who, as he himself said, was in his wagon preparing supper when the puncher, his eyes on his horse's ears, passed.

That night, when Ross rolled up in his blankets beside Weston he was sure he was lying beside the fourth cowboy of old man Quinn's search. But in the cold clear dawn he was not so sure. It might have been vanity that had led Weston to stain his hair, tow not being a manly color. Then, too, even if he had been on the North Fork, so were dozens of other cow punchers. As to his name, Weston would naturally have been astonished at perfect strangers addressing him rightly where he believed himself unknown.

Ross, eating his breakfast, and only half listening to Hank, looked down at the prostrate man speculatively, his mind full of suspicion, but not so sure as on the previous day that there was no flaw in his reasoning. He had not had an opportunity, the day before, of speaking to Hank about the matter, and now he decided to keep his suspicions to himself for the present.

His suspicions, however, during the two weeks which followed, were swallowed up in the anxiety that attended this, the first "case" where he had been obliged to assume all responsibility. The care and interruptions to his rest wore on him. Never had one of Aunt Anne's hair mattresses invited sleep as did the blankets laid on the dirt floor when he found time to lie on them. Often he fell asleep sitting on the hard bench, his head on his arms crossed on the table, while Hank was frying flapjacks and boiling thick black coffee.

As for the patient, he accepted Ross's ministrations with but few remarks. As his thigh bone began to knit, he became querulous, and finally passively enduring.

"When you goin' to let me out of this?" he asked on the day when Ross last measured the injured leg.

The man grunted, and worked restlessly at the sand-bag, which, on the outside of his leg, reached his armpit.

"Cody doctor be hanged!" he remarked unaffably. "He don't know half as much as you do."

It was the nearest approach to thanks or praise he had given Ross.

"That Cody doctor ain't worth shucks," confirmed Hank, who occupied a box beside the stove. "He tended a feller that I knew, and let 'im die." The speaker looked from Ross to his patient with an expression which plainly said that the former could not be guilty of any such charge.

The brown eyes of the patient rolled slowly in their sockets until their gaze could rest on Ross. Then the lids dropped over them. "The Cody doctor be hanged!" he remarked again more affably, and fell asleep.

Ross continued to sit on his heels until his patient commenced to snore. Then he glanced at the occupant of the box seat and asked softly:

"Hank, has Weston ever told you where he came from?"

"Nope," responded Hank absently. "Not where he hails from ner where he's started fer, ner why, ner what fer. That's nothin' though, Doc." Here Hank looked sidewise at Ross. "You'll find, if ye stay in these parts long, that there's lots of men who ain't partin' with every fact they know within ten minutes after ye're introduced to 'em. And you'll find, too, that it ain't always healthy to ask questions. Ye have th' sort of sense who ye can question and who ye can't."

Hank yawned and reached for the poker and a stick of wood. "I ain't aimin' to inquire fer into his history--unless I could inquire of some one else besides himself, that is. Hello!" he interrupted himself suddenly with the stick held over the stove. "Who's that hikin' over the Creek?"

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