Bitter Root Billings Arbiter
: PardnersBillings rode in from the Junction about dusk, and ate his supper in
silence. He'd been East for sixty days, and, although there lurked
about him the hint of unwonted ventures, etiquette forbade its
mention. You see, in our country, that which a man gives voluntarily
is ofttimes later dissected in smoky bunk-houses, or roughly handled
round flickering camp fires, but the privacies he guards are
inviolate. Curiosity
isn't popular nor hygenic.
Later, I found him meditatively whittling out on the porch, and, as
the moment seemed propitious, I inquired adroitly:--"Did you have a
good time in Chicago, 'Bitter Root'?"
"Bully," said he, relapsing into weighty absorption.
"What'd you do?" I inquired with almost the certainty of appearing
insistent.
"Don't you never read the papers?" he inquired, with such evident
compassion that Kink Martin and the other boys snickered. This from
"Bitter Root," who scorns literature outside of the "Arkansas
Printing," as he terms the illustrations!
"Guess I'll have to show you my press notices," and from a hip pocket
he produced a fat bundle of clippings in a rubber band. These he
displayed jealously, and I stared agape, for they were front pages of
great metropolitan dailies, marred with red and black scare heads, in
which I glimpsed the words, "Billings, of Montana," "'Bitter Root' on
Arbitration," "A Lochinvar Out of the West," and other things as
puzzling.
"Press Notices!" echoed Kink scornfully. "Wouldn't that rope ye? He
talks like Big Ike that went with the Wild West Show. When a puncher
gets so lazy he can't earn a livin' by the sweat of his pony, he
grows his hair, goes on the stage bustin' glass balls with shot
ca'tridges and talks about 'press notices.' Let's see 'em, Billings.
You pinch 'em as close to your stummick as though you held cards in a
strange poker game."
"Well, I have set in a strange game, amongst aliens," said
Billings, disregarding the request, "and I've held the high cards,
also I've drawed out with honours. I've sailed the medium high seas
with mutiny in the stoke-hold; I've changed the laws of labour,
politics and municipal economies. I went out of God's country right
into the heart of the decayin' East, and by the application of a
runnin' noose in a hemp rope I strangled oppression and put eight
thousand men to work." He paused ponderously. "I'm an Arbitrator!"
"The deuce you are," indignantly cried "Reddy" the cook. "Who says
so?"
"Reddy" isn't up in syntax, and his unreasoning loyalty to Billings
is an established fact of such standing that his remarks afford no
conjecture.
"Yes, I've cut into the 'Nation's Peril' and the 'Cryin' Evil' good
and strong--walkin' out from the stinks of the Union Stock Yards, of
Chicago, into the limelight of publicity, via the 'drunk and
disorderly' route.
"You see I got those ten carloads of steers into the city all right,
but I was so blame busy splatterin' through the tracked-up wastes of
the cow pens, an' inhalin' the sewer gas of the west side that I
never got to see a newspaper. If I'd 'a' read one, here's what I'd
'a' found, namely: The greatest, stubbornest, riotin'est strike ever
known, which means a heap for Chicago, she being the wet-nurse of
labour trouble.
"The whole river front was tied up. Nary a steamer had whistled
inside the six-mile crib for two weeks, and eight thousand men was
out. There was hold-ups and blood-sheddin' and picketin', which last
is an alias for assault with intents, and altogether it was a prime
place for a cowman, on a quiet vacation--just homelike and natural.
"It was at this point that I enters, bustin' out of the smoke of the
Stock Yards, all sweet and beautiful, like the gentle heeroine in the
play as she walks through the curtains at the back of the stage.
"Now you know there's a heap of difference between the Stock Yards
and Chicago--it's just like coming from Arkansas over into the United
States.
"Well, soon as I sold the stock I hit for the lake front and began to
ground sluice the coal dust off of my palate.
"I was busy working my booze hydraulic when I see an arid appearin'
pilgrim 'longside lookin' thirsty as an alkali flat.
"'Get in,' says I, and the way he obeyed orders looked like he'd had
military training. I felt sort of drawed to him from the way he
handled his licker; took it straight and runnin' over; then sopped
his hands on the bar and smelled of his fingers. He seemed to just
soak it up both ways--reg'lar human blotter.
"'You lap it up like a man,' says I, 'like a cowman--full
growed--ever been West?'
"'Nope,' says he, 'born here.'
"'Well I'm a stranger,' says I, 'out absorbin' such beauties of
architecture and free lunch as offers along the line. If I ain't
keepin' you up, I'd be glad of your company.'
"'I'm your assistant lunch buster,' says he, and in the course of
things he further explained that he was a tugboat fireman, out on a
strike, givin' me the follerin' information about the tie-up:--
"It all come up over a dose of dyspepsia--"
"Back up," interrupted Kink squirming, "are you plumb bug? Get
together! You're certainly the Raving Kid. Ye must have stone
bruised your heel and got concession of the brain."
"Yes sir! Indigestion," Billings continued. "Old man Badrich, of
the Badrich Transportation Company has it terrible. It lands on his
solar every morning about nine o'clock, gettin' worse steady, and
reaches perihelion along about eleven. He can tell the time of day
by taste. One morning when his mouth felt like about ten-forty-five
in comes a committee from Firemen & Engineers Local No. 21, with a
demand for more wages, proddin' him with the intimations that if he
didn't ante they'd tie up all his boats."
"I 'spose a teaspoonful of bakin' soda, assimilated internally around
the environments of his appendix would have spared the strike and
cheated me out of bein' a hero. As the poet might have said--'Upon
such slender pegs is this, our greatness hung.'"
"Oh, Gawd!" exclaimed Mulling, piously.
"Anyhow, the bitterness in the old man's inner tubes showed in the
bile of his answer, and he told 'em if they wanted more money he'd
give 'em a chance to earn it--they could work nights as well as days.
He intimated further that they'd ought to be satisfied with their
wages as they'd undoubtedly foller the same line of business in the
next world, and wouldn't get a cent for feedin' the fires neither.
"Next mornin' the strike was called, and the guy that breathed
treachery and walk-outs was one 'Oily' Heegan, further submerged
under the titles of President of the Federation of Fresh Water
Firemen; also Chairman of the United Water-front Workmen, which last
takes in everything doin' business along the river except the
wharf-rats and typhoid germs, and it's with the disreputableness of
this party that I infected myself to the detriment of labour and the
triumph of the law.
"D. O'Hara Heegan is an able man, and inside of a week he'd spread
the strike 'till it was the cleanest, dirtiest tie-up ever known.
The hospitals and morgues was full of non-union men, but the river
was empty all right. Yes, he had a persuadin' method of arbitration
quite convincing to the most calloused, involving the layin' on of
the lead pipe.
"Things got to be pretty fierce bye-and-bye, for they had the police
buffaloed, and disturbances got plentyer than the casualties at a
butchers' picnic. The strikers got hungry, too, finally, because the
principles of unionism is like a rash on your mechanic, skin
deep--inside, his gastrics works three shifts a day even if his
outsides is idle and steaming with Socialism.
"Oily fed 'em dray loads of eloquence, but it didn't seem to be real
fillin'. They'd leave the lectures and rob a bakery.
"He was a wonder though; just sat in his office, and kept the ship
owners waitin' in line, swearin' bitter and refined cuss-words about
'ignorant fiend' and 'cussed pedagogue,' which last, for Kink's
enlightenment, means a kind of Hebrew meetin'-house.
"These here details my new friend give me, ending with a eulogy on
Oily Heegan, the Idol of the Idle.
"'If he says starve, we starve,' says he, 'and if he says work, we
work. See! Oh he's the goods, he is! Let's go down by the
river--mebbe we'll see him.' So me and Murdock hiked down Water
Street, where they keep mosquito netting over the bar fixtures and
spit at the stove.
"We found him, a big mouthed, shifty, kind of man, 'bout as cynical
lookin' in the face as a black bass, and full of wind as a toad fish.
I exchanged drinks for principles of socialism, and doin' so happened
to display my roll. Murdock slipped away and made talk with a
friend, then, when Heegan had left, he steers me out the back way
into an alley. 'Short cut,' says he 'to another and a better place.'
"I follers through a back room; then as I steps out the door I'm
grabbed by this new friend, while Murdock bathes my head with a
gas-pipe billy, one of the regulation, strike promotin' kind, like
they use for decoyin' members into the glorious ranks of Labour.
"I saw a 'Burning of Rome' that was a dream, and whole cloudbursts of
shootin' stars, but I yanked Mr. Enthusiastic Stranger away from my
surcingle and throwed him agin the wall. In the shuffle Murdock
shifts my ballasts though, and steams up the alley with my
greenbacks, convoyed by his friend.
"'Wow-ow,' says I, givin' the distress signal so that the windows
rattled, and reachin' for my holster. I'd 'a' got them both, only
the gun caught in my suspender. You see, not anticipatin' any live
bird shoot I'd put it inside my pants-band, under my vest, for
appearances. A forty-five is like fresh air to a drownding
man--generally has to be drawed in haste--and neither one shouldn't
be mislaid. I got her out at last and blazed away, just a second
after they dodged around the comer. Then I hit the trail after 'em,
lettin' go a few sky-shots and gettin' a ghost-dance holler off my
stummick that had been troubling me. The wallop on the head made me
dizzy though, and I zigzagged awful, tackin' out of the alley right
into a policeman.
"'Whee!' says I in joy, for he had Murdock safe by the bits, buckin'
considerable.
"'Stan' aside and le'mme 'lectrocute 'im,' says I. I throwed the gun
on him and the crowd dogged it into all the doorways and windows
convenient, but I was so weak-minded in the knees I stumbled over the
curb and fell down.
"Next thing I knew we was all bouncin' over the cobble-stones in a
patrol wagon.
"Well, in the morning I told my story to the Judge, plain and
unvarnished. Then Murdock takes the stand and busts into song,
claiming that he was comin' through the alley toward Clark Street
when I staggered out back of a saloon and commenced to shoot at him.
He saw I was drunk, and fanned out, me shootin' at him with every
jump. He had proof, he said, and he called for the president of his
Union, Mr. Heegan. At the name all the loafers and stew-bums in the
court-room stomped and said, 'Hear, hear,' while up steps this
Napoleon of the Hoboes.
"Sure, he knew Mr. Murdock--had known him for years, and he was
perfectly reliable and honest. As to his robbing me, it was
preposterous, because he himself was at the other end of the alley
and saw the whole thing, just as Mr. Murdock related it.
"I jumps up. 'You're a liar, Heegan. I was buyin' booze for the two
of you;' but a policeman nailed me, chokin' off my rhetorics. Mr.
Heegan leans over and whispers to the Judge, while I got chilblains
along my spine.
"'Look here, kind Judge,' says I real winning and genteel, 'this man
is so good at explainin' things away, ask him to talk off this bump
over my ear. I surely didn't get a buggy spoke and laminate myself
on the nut.
"'That'll do,' says the Judge. 'Mr. Clerk, ten dollars and
costs--charge, drunk and disorderly. Next!'
"'Hold on there,' says I, ignorant of the involutions of justice, 'I
guess I've got the bulge on you this time. They beat you to me,
Judge. I ain't got a cent. You can go through me and be welcome to
half you find. I'll mail you ten when I get home though, honest.'
"At that the audience giggled, and the Judge says:--
"'Your humour doesn't appeal to me, Billings. Of course, you have
the privilege of working it out.' Oh, Glory, the 'Privilege!'
"Heegan nodded at this, and I realized what I was against.
"'Your honour,' says I with sarcastic refinements, 'science tells us
that a perfect vacuum ain't possible, but after watching you I know
better, and for you, Mr. Workingman's Friend,--us to the floor,' and
I run at Heegan.
"Pshaw! I never got started, nor I didn't rightfully come to till I
rested in the workhouse, which last figger of speech is a pure and
beautiful paradox.
"I ain't dwellin' with glee on the next twenty-six days--ten dollars
and costs, at four bits a day, but I left there saturated with such
hatreds for Heegan that my breath smelted of 'em.
"I wanders down the river front, hoping the fortunes of war would
deliver him to me dead or alive, when the thought hit me that I'd
need money. It was bound to take another ten and costs shortly after
we met, and probably more, if I paid for what I got, for I figgered
on distendin' myself with satisfaction and his features with
uppercuts. Then I see a sign, 'Non-Union men wanted--Big wages.' In
I goes, and strains my langwidge through a wire net at the cashier.
"'I want them big wages,' says I.
"'What can you do?'
"'Anything to get the money,' says I. 'What does it take to
liquidate an assault on a labour leader?'
"There was a white-haired man in the cage who began to sit up and
take notice.
"'What's your trouble?' says he, and I told him.
"'If we had a few more like you, we'd bust the strike,' says he, kind
of sizin' me up. 'I've got a notion to try it anyhow,' and he smites
the desk. 'Collins what d'ye say if we tow the "Detroit" out? Her
crew has stayed with us so far, and they'll stick now if we'll say
the word. The unions are hungry and scrapping among themselves, and
the men want to go back to work. It's just that devil of a Heegan
that holds 'em. If they see we've got a tug crew that'll go, they'll
arbitrate, and we'll kill the strike.'
"'Yes, sir!' says Collins, 'but where's the tug crew, Mr. Badrich?'
"'Right here! We three, and Murphy, the bookkeeper. Blast this
idleness! I want to fight.'
"'I'll take the same,' says I, 'when I get the price.'
"'That's all right. You've put the spirit into me, and I'll see you
through. Can you run an engine? Good! I'll take the wheel, and the
others'll fire. It's going to be risky work, though. You won't back
out, eh?'"
Reddy interrupted Billings here loudly, with a snort of disgust,
while "Bitter Root" ran his fingers through his hair before
continuing. Martin was listening intently.
"The old man arranged to have a squad of cops on all the bridges, and
I begin anticipatin' hilarities for next day.
"The news got out of course, through the secrecies of police
headquarters, and when we ran up the river for our tow, it looked
like every striker west of Pittsburg had his family on the docks to
see the barbecue, accompanied by enough cobble-stones and scrap iron
to ballast a battleship. All we got goin' up was repartee, but I
figgered we'd need armour gettin' back.
"We passed a hawser to the 'Detroit,' and I turned the gas into the
tug, blowin' for the Wells Street Bridge. Then war began. I leans
out the door just in time to see the mob charge the bridge. The cops
clubbed 'em back, while a roar went up from the docks and roof tops
that was like a bad dream. I couldn't see her move none though, and
old man Badrich blowed again expurgatin' himself of as nobby a line
of cuss words as you'll muster outside the cattle belt.
"'Soak 'em,' I yells, 'give 'em all the arbitration you've got handy.
If she don't open; we'll jump her,' and I lets out another notch, so
that we went plowin' and boilin' towards the draw.
"It looked like we'd have to hurdle it sure enough, but the police
beat the crowd back just in time. She wasn't clear open though, and
our barge caromed off the spiles. It was like a nigger buttin' a
persimmon tree--we rattled off a shower of missiles like an abnormal
hail storm. Talk about your coast defence; they heaved everything at
us from bad names to railroad iron, and we lost all our window glass
the first clatter, while the smoke stack looked like a pretzel with
cramps.
"When we scraped through I looked back with pity at the 'Detroit's'
crew. She hadn't any wheel house, and the helmsman was due to get
all the attention that was comin' to him. They'd built up a
barricade of potato sacks, chicken coops and bic-a-brac around the
wheel that protected 'em somewhat, but even while I watched, some
Polack filtered a brick through and laid out the quartermaster cold,
and he was drug off. Oh! it was refined and esthetic.
"Well, we run the gauntlet, presented every block with stuff rangin'
in tensile strength from insults to asphalt pavements, and
noise!--say, all the racket in the world was a whisper. I caught a
glimpse of the old man leanin' out of the pilot house, where a window
had been, his white hair bristly, and his nostrils h'isted,
embellishin' the air with surprisin' flights of gleeful profanity.
"'Hooray! this is livin' he yells, spyin' me shovelin' the deck out
from under the junk. 'Best scrap I've had in years,' and just then
some baseball player throwed in from centre field, catching him in
the neck with a tomato. Gee! that man's an honour to the faculty of
speech.
"I was doin' bully till a cobble-stone bounced into the engine room,
makin' a billiard with my off knee, then I got kind of peevish.
"Rush Street Bridge is the last one, and they'd massed there on both
sides, like fleas on a razorback. Thinks I, 'If we make it through
here, we've busted the strike,' and I glances back at the 'Detroit'
just in time to see her crew pullin' their captain into the deck
house, limp and bleedin'. The barricade was all knocked to pieces
and they'd flunked absolute. Don't blame 'em much either, as it was
sure death to stand out in the open under the rain of stuff that come
from the bridges. Of course with no steerin' she commenced to swing
off.
"I jumps out the far side of the engine room and yells fit to bust my
throat.
"'Grab that wheel! Grab it quick--we'll hit the bridge,' but it was
like deef and dumb talk in a boiler shop, while a wilder howl went up
from the water front as they seen what they'd done and smelled
victory. There's an awfulness about the voice of a blood-maddened
club-swingin' mob; it lifts your scalp like a fright wig,
particularly if you are the clubee.
"'We've got one chance,' thinks I, 'but if she strikes we're gone.
They'll swamp us sure, and all the police in Cook County won't save
enough for to hold services on.' Then I throwed a look at the
opening ahead and the pessimisms froze in me.
"I forgot all about the resiliency of brickbats and the table manners
of riots, for there, on top of a bunch of spiles, ca'm, masterful and
bloated with perjuries, was Oily Heegan dictatin' the disposition of
his forces, the light of victory in his shifty, little eyes.
"'Ten dollars and costs,' I shrieks, seein' red. 'Lemme crawl up
them spiles to you.'
"Then inspiration seized me. My soul riz up and grappled with the
crisis, for right under my mit, coiled, suggestive and pleadin', was
one of the tug's heavin' lines, 'bout a three-eighths size. I slips
a runnin' knot in the end and divides the coils, crouchin' behind the
deck-house till we come abeam of him, then I straightened, give it a
swinging heave, and the noose sailed up and settled over him fine and
daisy.
"I jerked back, and Oily Heegan did a high dive from Rush Street that
was a geometrical joy. He hit kind of amateurish, doin' what we used
to call a 'belly-buster' back home, but quite satisfyin' for a maiden
effort, and I reeled him in astern.
"Your Chicago man ain't a gamey fish. He come up tame and squirting
sewage like a dissolute porpoise, while I played him out where he'd
get the thrash of the propeller.
"'Help,' he yells, 'I'm a drownding.'
"'Ten dollars and costs," says I, lettin' him under again. 'Do you
know who you're drinkin' with this time, hey?'
"I reckon the astonishment of the mob was equal to Heegan's; anyhow
I'm told that we was favoured with such quietness that my voice
sounded four blocks, simply achin' with satisfactions. Then
pandemonium tore loose, but I was so engrosed in sweet converse I
never heard it or noticed that the 'Detroit' had slid through the
draw by a hair, and we was bound for the blue and smilin' lake.
"'For God's sake, lemme up,' says Heegan, splashin' along and
look-in' strangly. I hauls him in where he wouldn't miss any of my
ironies, and says:--
"'I just can't do it, Oily--it's wash day. You're plumb nasty with
boycotts and picketin's and compulsory arbitrations. I'm goin' to
clean you up,' and I sozzled him under like a wet shirt.
"I drug him out again and continues:--
"'This is Chinamen's work, Oily, but I lost my pride in the
Bridewell, thanks to you. It's tough on St. Louis to laundry you up
stream this way, but maybe the worst of your heresies 'll be purified
when they get that far.' You know the Chicago River runs up hill out
of Lake Michigan through the drainage canal and into the St. Louis
waterworks. Sure it does--most unnatural stream I ever see about
direction and smells.
"I was gettin' a good deal of enjoyment and infections out of him
when old man Badrich ran back enamelled with blood and passe tomato
juice, the red in his white hair makin' his top look like one of
these fancy ice-cream drinks you get at a soda fountain.
"'Here! here! you'll kill him,' says he, so I hauled him aboard,
drippin' and clingy, wringin' him out good and thorough--by the neck.
He made a fine mop.
"These clippings," continued "Bitter Root," fishing into his pocket,
"tell in beautiful figgers how the last seen of Oily Heegan he was
holystoning the deck of a sooty little tugboat under the
admonishments and feet of 'Bitter Root' Billings of Montana, and they
state how the strikers tried to get tugs for pursuit and couldn't,
and how, all day long, from the housetops was visible a tugboat madly
cruisin' about inside the outer cribs, bustin' the silence with
joyful blasts of victory, and they'll further state that about dark
she steamed up the river, tired and draggled, with a bony-lookin'
cowboy inhalin' cigareets on the stern-bits, holding a three-foot
knotted rope in his lap. When a delegation of strikers met her,
inquirin' about one D. O'Hara Heegan, it says like this," and
Billings read laboriously as follows:--
"'Then the bronzed and lanky man arose with a smile of rare
contentment, threw overboard his cigarette, and approaching the
boiler-room hatch, called loudly: "Come out of that," and the
President of the Federation of Fresh Water Firemen dragged himself
wearily out into the flickering lights. He was black and drenched
and streaked with sweat; also, he shone with the grease and oils of
the engines, while the palms of his hands were covered with painful
blisters from unwonted, intimate contact with shovels and drawbars.
It was seen that he winced fearfully as the cowboy twirled the rope
end.
"'"He's got the makin's of a fair fireman,'" said the stranger, "'all
he wants is practice.'"
"Then, as the delegation murmured angrily, he held up his hand and,
in the ensuing silence, said:--
"'"Boys, the strike's over. Mr. Heegan has arbitrated."'"
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On the road he passed Miss Brewster--for the Alder school boasted two teachers!--and under her kindly, rather faded smile he felt a great desire to stop and take her into his confidence; ask her what Betty Neal had been doing all these months. Inste... Battle On The Mesa
"Oh, the cowboy sings so mournful on the Rio! To the dark night herd, so mournful and so sad, And I'd like to be in the moonlight on the Rio, Wheah good men are good, and bad men are bad!" Kid Wolf sang the tune softly to the whispe... Bear Cat Asks Questions
A man bow-legged into Gillespie's and went straight to the bar. "Gimme a drink--something damned hot," he growled. He was a big, broad-shouldered fellow, hook-nosed, with cold eyes set close. Hair and eyebrows were matted with ice and a coat of ... Bear Cat Asleep
Bear Cat basked in the mellow warmth of Indian summer. Peace brooded over the valley, a slumberous and placid drowsiness. Outside Platt & Fortner's store big freight wagons stood close to the sidewalk. They had just come in from their long overlan... Bear Cat Awake
At exactly eleven o'clock Houck, Bandy Walker, and the big young cowpuncher who had ridden into town with them met at the corner of one of the freight wagons. Houck talked, the others listened, except for a comment or two. A cattleman passing them... Bears
The old hunter walked so swiftly that I had to run to keep up with him. The trail led up the creek, now on one side, again on the other, and I was constantly skipping from stone to stone. The grassy slopes grew fewer, and finally gave way altogether... Beating A Good Man
Trevison had not moved. He had watched the movements of the other closely, noting his huge bulk, his lithe motions, the play of his muscles as he backed across the room to dispose of the pistol. At Corrigan's words though, Trevison's eyes glowed w... Beatrice Learns A New Language
"D'you want to see the boys work a bunch of cattle, Trix?" Dick said to her, when she came down to where he was leaning against a high board fence, waiting for her. "'Deed I do, Dicky--only I've no idea what you mean." "The boys are going to ... Beatrice's Wild Ride
"Well, are we all ready?" Dick gathered up his reins, and took critical inventory of the load. His mother peered under the front seat to be doubly sure that there were at least four umbrellas and her waterproof raglan in the rig; Mrs. Lansell did ... Before He Grew Up
The little white "digger," galloping with the stiff, short-legged jumps of the broken-down cow pony, stopped short as the boy riding him pulled sharply on the reins, and after looking hard at something which lay in a bare spot in the grass, slid f... Behind The Bars
In the whirl and excitement following the startling outcry from the flats, all Fort Frayne was speedily involved. The guard came rushing through the night, Corporal Shannon stumbling over a prostrate form,--the sentry on Number Six, gagged and bou... Ben Swann
Since the night when old Joe Cumberland died and Kate Cumberland rode off after her wild man, Ben Swann, the foreman of the Cumberland ranch, had lived in the big house. He would have been vastly more comfortable in the bunkhouse playing cards with ... Benson's Bridge-timbers
It was on the morning following the startling episode at the Dawsons' gate that Benson, lately arrived from the west on train 204, came into the superintendent's office with the light of discovery in his eye. But the discovery, if any there were, ... Berrie's Vigil
The situation in which Berea now found herself would have disheartened most women of mature age, but she remained not only composed, she was filled with an irrational delight. The nurse that is in every woman was aroused in her, and she looked for... Besieged
Deep down in a ragged cleft of the desert, with shelving rock and giant bowlder on every side, without a sign of leaf, or sprig of grass, or tendril of tiny creeping plant, a little party of haggard, hunted men lay in hiding and in the silence of ... Between The Acts
My road to Sunk Creek lay in no straight line. By rail I diverged northwest to Fort Meade, and thence, after some stay with the kind military people, I made my way on a horse. Up here in the Black Hills it sluiced rain most intolerably. The horse ... Big Reuben's Raid
"Wake up, boys! Wake up! Tumble out, there! Quick! Big Reuben's into the pig-pen again!" Our bedroom door was banged wide open, and my father stood before us--a startling apparition--dressed only in his night-shirt and a pair of boots, carrying... Big-game Hunters At Work
Bob and his partner did not rush out of the hotel instantly to get into the fray. They did what a score of other able-bodied men of Bear Cat were doing--went in search of adequate weapons with which to oppose the bank robbers. Bear Cat was probabl... Billy The Clerk
If Sheriff Pete Glass had been the typical hard-riding, sure-shooting officer of the law as it is seen in the mountain-desert, his work would have died with his death, but Glass had a mind as active as his hands, and therefore, for at least a little... Bitter Root Billings Arbiter
Billings rode in from the Junction about dusk, and ate his supper in silence. He'd been East for sixty days, and, although there lurked about him the hint of unwonted ventures, etiquette forbade its mention. You see, in our country, that which a m... Bitter-sweet
Taking his cue from certain passages in the book of painful memories, Lidgerwood meant to obey his first impulse, which prompted him to follow Mr. Brewster to the private office state-room in the forward end of the car, disregarding the couple in ... Black Macqueen Cashes His Checks
It was part of his supreme audacity to trust her. While he was changing his dusty, travel-stained clothes for some that belonged to her brother she prepared a meal for him downstairs. A dozen times the impulse was on her to fly into the street and... Black Sage And Juniper
AUGUST NAAB appeared on the path leading from his fields. "Mescal, here you are," he greeted. "How about the sheep?" "Piute's driving them down to the lower range. There are a thousand coyotes hanging about the flock." "That's bad," rejoine... Black Star And Night
The time had come for Venters and Bess to leave their retreat. They were at great pains to choose the few things they would be able to carry with them on the journey out of Utah. "Bern, whatever kind of a pack's this, anyhow?" question... Blackleg
More than once during the next ten minutes Buck cursed himself inwardly for not having brought along the small but powerful pair of field-glasses that were tucked away in his bag. He had picked them up at the Divisional Headquarters only a week or... Blaze Jones's Nemesis
Blaze Jones rode up to his front gate and dismounted in the shade of the big ebony-tree. He stepped back and ran an approving eye over another animal tethered there. It was a thoroughbred bay mare he had never seen, and as he scanned her good poin... Blind Signals
Lidgerwood was not making the conventional excuse when he gave the deskful of work as a reason for not accepting the invitation to dine with the president's party in the Nadia. Being the practical as well as the nominal head of the Red Butte line,... Blister As Deus Ex Machina
Blister Haines found an old pair of chaps for Bob Dillon and lent him a buckskin bronco. Also, he wrote a note addressed to Harshaw, of the Slash Lazy D, and gave it to the boy. "He'll put you to ridin', Ed will. The rest's up to you. D-don't yo... Blister Gives Advice
Blister Haines, J. P., was by way of being a character. His waggish viewpoint was emphasized by a slight stutter. "S-so you want to h-hitch up to double trouble, do you?" he asked. "We want to get married," Bob said. "S-same thing," the fat... Blizzard's Charge
Kid Wolf was so dazed for a time that he but dimly realized what was happening to him. Half stunned, he was carried, along with Dave Robbins, out of the arroyo. He was light-headed from the blows he had received. That torture was in store for t... Blood Will Tell
As Webb had predicted, even before nine o'clock, came prompt, spirited response from Laramie, where the colonel had ordered the four troops to prepare for instant march, and had bidden the infantry to be ready for any duty the general might order.... Bob Crawls His Hump Sudden
There was a game of stud after supper in the bunkhouse. Bob lay on his bed, a prey to wretched dread. He had made up his mind to have it out with Bandy, but his heart was pumping water instead of blood. When he looked at the squat puncher, thick-n... Bob Holds His Red Haid High
At the corner of the street Bob came upon Tom Reeves and an old Leadville miner in argument. Tom made the high sign to Dillon. "What's all the rumpus about?" he wanted to know. "Jake Houck was seen crossin' the park. He got into the sage." ... Bob Takes A Hand
Fendrick, riding on Mesa Verde, met Bob Cullison, and before he knew what had happened found a gun thrown on him. "Don't you move," the boy warned. "What does this tommyrot mean?" the sheepman demanded angrily. "It means that you are coming... Bonita
Florence's story of the lost mine fired Madeline's guests with the fever for gold-hunting. But after they had tried it a few times and the glamour of the thing wore off they gave up and remained in camp. Having exhausted all the resources of the mou... Brand Blotting
The tenderfoot, slithering down a hillside of shale, caught at a greasewood bush and waited. The sound of a rifle shot had drifted across the ridge to him. Friend or foe, it made no difference to him now. He had reached the end of his tether, must... Breaks One And Makes Another Engagement
Miss Balfour's glass made her irritably aware of cheeks unduly flushed and eyes unusually bright. Since she prided herself on being sufficient for the emergencies of life, she cast about in her mind to determine which of the interviews that lay befo... Brown Of Calaveras
A subdued tone of conversation, and the absence of cigar smoke and boot heels at the windows of the Wingdam stagecoach, made it evident that one of the inside passengers was a woman. A disposition on the part of loungers at the stations to congreg... Buck Finds Out Something
When the fact is chronicled that no less than three times in the succeeding eight days Buck Stratton was strongly tempted to put an end to the whole puzzling business by the simple expedient of declaring his identity and taking possession of the S... Buck Rides
Presently Mrs. Archer released her spasmodic grip on Stratton's flannel shirt and fumbled for her handkerchief. "I'm a fool to--to waste time like this," she faltered, dabbing her eyes with the crumpled square of cambric. "I think you're rath... Buck Takes A Hand
Cowan's saloon, club, and place of general assembly for the town of Buckskin and the nearby ranches, held a merry crowd, for it was pay-day on the range and laughter and liquor ran a close race. Buck Peters, his hands full of cigars, passed through ... Buckskin
The town lay sprawled over half a square mile of alkali plain, its main Street depressing in its width, for those who were responsible for its inception had worked with a generosity born of the knowledge that they had at their immediate and unchalle... Bucky Entertains
Bucky began at once to tap the underground wires his official position made accessible to him. These ran over Southern Arizona, Sonora, and Chihuahua. All the places to which criminals or frontiersmen with money were wont to resort were reported upo... Bucky Makes A Discovery
For a week Bucky had been in the little border town of Noches, called there by threats of a race war between the whites and the Mexicans. Having put the quietus on this, he was returning to Epitaph by way of the Huachuca Mountains. There are still p... Bucky's First-rate Reasons
How long Frances Mackenzie gave herself up to despair she never knew, but when at last she resolutely took herself in hand it seemed hours later. "Bucky told me to be brave, he told me not to lose my nerve," she repeated to herself over and over aga... Bud Cannot Perform Miracles
They went on and on, through the rain and the wind, sometimes through the mud as well, where the roads were not paved. Foster had almost pounced upon the newspaper when he discovered it in Bud's pocket as he climbed in, and Bud knew that the two read t... Bud Faces Facts
New Year came and passed and won nothing in the way of celebration from the three in Nelson's cabin. Bud's bones ached, his head ached, the flesh on his body ached. He could take no comfort anywhere, under any circumstances. He craved clean white beds ... Bud Flips A Coin With Fate
"I don't think it matters so much where we light, it's what we do when we get there," said Bud to Smoky, his horse, one day as they stopped where two roads forked at the base of a great, outstanding peak that was but the point of a mountain range. "... Bud Meets The Woman
A woman was stooping at the woodpile, filling her arms with crooked sticks of rough-barked sage. From the color of her hair Bud knew that she was not Honey, and that she was therefore a stranger to him. But he swung off the path and went over to her... Bud Rides Through Catrock And Loses Marian
"You'll have to show me the trail, pardner," said Bud when they were making their way cautiously out of town by way of the tin can suburbs. "I could figure out the direction all right, and make it by morning; but seeing you grew up here, I'll let yo... Bud Takes To The Hills
In a little village which he had glimpsed from the top of a hill Bud went into the cluttered little general store and bought a few blocks of slim, evil smelling matches and a couple of pounds of sliced bacon, a loaf of stale bread, and two small cans o... Buddy Gives Warning
Buddy swung down from his horse, unsaddled it and went staggering to the stable wall with the burden of a stock-saddle much too big for him. He had to stand on his boot-toes to reach and pull the bridle down over the ears of Whitefoot, which turned ... Buddy Runs True To Type
One never could predict with any certainty how long Indians would dance before they actually took the trail of murder and pillage. So much depended upon the Medicine, so much on signs and portents. It was even possible that they might, for some myst... Building A Cabin
By reason of having been the first to see the strange foot-prints, and having come upon them, too, in the gray light of the early morning, when alone in the forest solitudes, John found it hard to shake off the dread with which they filled him. On... Bulger's Reputation
We all remembered very distinctly Bulger's advent in Rattlesnake Camp. It was during the rainy season--a season singularly inducive to settled reflective impressions as we sat and smoked around the stove in Mosby's grocery. Like older and more civ...