Buckskin

: Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-up

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 unchallenged disposal the broad

lands of Texas and New Mexico on which to assemble a grand total of

twenty buildings, four of which were of wood. As this material was

scarce, and h
d to be brought from where the waters of the Gulf lapped

against the flat coast, the last-mentioned buildings were a matter of

local pride, as indicating the progressiveness of their owners.



These creations of hammer and saw were of one story, crude and unpainted;

their cheap weather sheathing, warped and shrunken by the pitiless

sun, curled back on itself and allowed unrestricted entrance to alkali

dust and air. The other shacks were of adobe, and reposed in that

magnificent squalor dear to their owners, Indians and Mexicans.



It was an incident of the Cattle Trail, that most unique and

stupendous of all modern migrations, and its founders must have been

inspired with a malicious desire to perpetrate a crime against

geography, or else they reveled in a perverse cussedness, for within a

mile on every side lay broad prairies, and two miles to the east

flowed the indolent waters of the Rio Pecos itself. The distance

separating the town from the river was excusable, for at certain

seasons of the year the placid stream swelled mightily and swept down

in a broad expanse of turbulent, yellow flood.



Buckskin was a town of one hundred inhabitants, located in the

valley of the Rio Pecos fifty miles south of the Texas-New Mexico

line. The census claimed two hundred, but it was a well-known fact

that it was exaggerated. One instance of this is shown by the name of

Tom Flynn. Those who once knew Tom Flynn, alias Johnny Redmond, alias

Bill Sweeney, alias Chuck Mullen, by all four names, could find them

in the census list. Furthermore, he had been shot and killed in the

March of the year preceding the census, and now occupied a grave in

the young but flourishing cemetery. Perry's Bend, twenty miles up the

river, was cognizant of this and other facts, and, laughing in open

derision at the padded list, claimed to be the better town in all

ways, including marksmanship.



One year before this tale opens, Buck Peters, an example for the

more recent Billy the Kid, had paid Perry's Bend a short but busy

visit. He had ridden in at the north end of Main Street and out at the

south. As he came in he was fired at by a group of ugly cowboys from a

ranch known as the C 80. He was hit twice, but he unlimbered his

artillery, and before his horse had carried him, half dead, out on the

prairie, he had killed one of the group. Several citizens had joined

the cowboys and added their bullets against Buck. The deceased had

been the best bartender in the country, and the rage of the suffering

citizens can well be imagined. They swore vengeance on Buck, his

ranch, and his stamping ground.



The difference between Buck and Billy the Kid is that the former

never shot a man who was not trying to shoot him, or who had not been

warned by some action against Buck that would call for it. He minded

his own business, never picked a quarrel, and was quiet and pacific up

to a certain point. After that had been passed he became like a raging

cyclone in a tenement house, and storm-cellars were much in demand.



"Fanning" is the name of a certain style of gun play not unknown

among the bad men of the West. While Buck was not a bad man, he had to

rub elbows with them frequently, and he believed that the sauce for

the goose was the sauce for the gander. So be bad removed the trigger

of his revolver and worked the hammer with the thumb of the "gun hand"

or the heel of the unencumbered hand. The speed thus acquired was

greater than that of the more modern double-action weapon. Six shots

in a few seconds was his average speed when that number was required,

and when it is thoroughly understood that at least some of them found

their intended bullets it is not difficult to realize that fanning was

an operation of danger when Buck was doing it.



He was a good rider, as all cowboys are, and was not afraid of

anything that lived. At one time he and his chums, Red Connors and

Hopalong Cassidy, had successfully routed a band of fifteen Apaches

who wanted their scalps. Of these, twelve never hunted scalps again,

nor anything else on this earth, and the other three returned to their

tribe with the report that three evil Spirits had chased them with

"wheel guns" (cannons).



So now, since his visit to Perry's Bend, the rivalry of the two

towns had turned to hatred and an alert and eager readiness to

increase the inhabitants of each other's graveyard. A state of war

existed, which for a time resulted in nothing worse than acrimonious

suggestions. But the time came when the score was settled to the

satisfaction of one side, at least.



Four ranches were also concerned in the trouble. Buckskin was

surrounded by two, the Bar 20 and the Three Triangle. Perry's Bend was

the common point for the C 80 and the Double Arrow. Each of the two

ranch contingents accepted the feud as a matter of course, and as a

matter of course took sides with their respective towns. As no better

class of fighters ever lived, the trouble assumed Homeric proportions

and insured a danger zone well worth watching.



Bar-20's northern line was C 80's southern one, and Skinny Thompson

took his turn at outriding one morning after the season's round-up. He

was to follow the boundary and turn back stray cattle. When he had

covered the greater part of his journey he saw Shorty Jones riding

toward him on a course parallel to his own and about long revolver

range away. Shorty and he had "crossed trails" the year before and the

best of feelings did not exist between them.



Shorty stopped and stared at Skinny, who did likewise at Shorty.

Shorty turned his mount around and applied the spurs, thereby causing

his indignant horse to raise both heels at Skinny. The latter took it

all in gravely and, as Shorty faced him again, placed his left thumb

to his nose, wiggling his fingers suggestively. Shorty took no

apparent notice of this but began to shout:



"Yu wants to keep yore busted-down cows on yore own side. They was

all over us day afore yisterday. I'm goin' to salt any more what comes

over, and don't yu fergit it, neither."



Thompson wigwagged with his fingers again and shouted in reply: "Yu

c'n salt all yu wants to, but if I ketch yu adoin' it yu won't have to

work no more. An' I kin say right here thet they's more C 80 cows over

here than they's Bar-20's over there."



Shorty reached for his revolver and yelled, "Yore a liar!"



Among the cowboys in particular and the Westerners in general at

that time, the three suicidal terms, unless one was an expert in

drawing quick and shooting straight with one movement, were the words

"liar," "coward," and "thief." Any man who was called one of these in

earnest, and he was the judge, was expected to shoot if he could and

save his life, for the words were seldom used without a gun coming

with them. The movement of Shorty's hand toward his belt before the

appellation reached him was enough for Skinny, who let go at long

range-and missed.





The two reports were as one. Both urged their horses nearer and

fired again. This time Skinny's sombrero gave a sharp jerk and a hole

appeared in the crown. The third shot of Skinny's sent the horse of

the other to its knees and then over on its side. Shorty very promptly

crawled behind it and, as he did so, Skinny began a wide circle,

firing at intervals as Shorty's smoke cleared away.



Shorty had the best position for defense, as he was in a shallow

coul e, but he knew that he could not leave it until his opponent had

either grown tired of the affair or had used up his ammunition. Skinny

knew it, too. Skinny also knew that he could get back to the ranch

house and lay in a supply of food and ammunition and return before

Shorty could cover the twelve miles he had to go on foot.



Finally Thompson began to head for home. He had carried the matter

as far as he could without it being murder. Too much time had elapsed

now, and, besides, it was before breakfast and he was hungry. He would

go away and settle the score at some time when they would be on equal

terms.



He rode along the line for a mile and chanced to look back. Two C 80

punchers were riding after him, and as they saw him turn and discover

them they fired at him and yelled. He rode on for some distance and

cautiously drew his rifle out of its long holster at his right leg.

Suddenly he turned around in the saddle and fired twice. One of his

pursuers fell forward on the neck of his horse, and his comrade turned

to help him. Thompson wig-wagged again and rode on, reaching the ranch

as the others were finishing their breakfast.



At the table Red Connors remarked that the tardy one had a hole in

his sombrero, and asked its owner how and where he had received it.



"Had a argument with C 80 out'n th' line."



"Go `way! Ventilate enny?"



"One."



"Good boy, sonny! Hey, Hopalong, Skinny perforated C 80 this

mawnin'!"



Hopalong Cassidy was struggling with a mouthful of beef. He turned

his eyes toward Red without ceasing, and grinning as well as he could

under the circumstances managed to grunt out "Gu-," which was as near

to "Good" as the beef would allow.



Lanky Smith now chimed in as he repeatedly stuck his knife into a

reluctant boiled potato, "How'd yu do it, Skinny?"



"Bet he sneaked up on him," joshed Buck Peters; "did yu ask his

pardin, Skinny?"



"Ask nuthin'," remarked Red, "he jest nachurly walks up to C 80 an'

sez, `Kin I have the pleasure of ventilatin' yu?' an' C So he sez, `If

yu do it easy like,' sez he. Didn't he, Thompson?"



"They'll be some ventilatin' under th' table if yu fellows don't

lemme alone; I'm hungry," complained Skinny.



"Say, Hopalong, I bets yu I kin clean up C 80 all by my lonesome,"

announced Buck, winking at Red.



"Yah! Yu onct tried to clean up the Bend, Buckie, an' if Pete an'

Billy hadn't afound yu when they come by Eagle Pass that night yu

wouldn't be here eatin' beef by th' pound," glancing at the

hard-working Hopalong. "It was plum lucky fer yu that they was

acourtin' that time, wasn't it, Hopalong?" suddenly asked Red.

Hopalong nearly strangled in his efforts to speak. He gave it

up and nodded his head.



"Why can't yu git it straight, Connors? I wasn't doin' no courtin',

it was Pete. I runned into him on th' other side o' th' pass. I'd look

fine acourtin', wouldn't I?" asked the downtrodden Williams.



Pete Wilson skillfully flipped a potato into that worthy's coffee,

spilling the beverage of the questionable name over a large expanse of

blue flannel shirt. "Yu's all right, yu are. Why, when I meets yu, yu

was lost in th' arms of yore ladylove. All I could see was yore feet.

Go an' git tangled up with a two hundred and forty pound half-breed

squaw an' then try to lay it onter me! When I proposed drownin' yore

troubles over at Cowan's, yu went an' got mad over what yu called th'

insinooation. An' yu shore didn't look any too blamed fine, neither."



"All th' same," volunteered Thompson, who had taken the edge from

his appetite, "we better go over an' pay C 80 a call. I don't like

what Shorty said about saltin' our cattle. He'll shore do it, unless I

camps on th' line, which same I hain't hankerin' after."



"Oh, he wouldn't stop th' cows that way, Skinny; he was only

afoolin'," exclaimed Connors meekly.



"Foolin' yore gran'mother! That there bunch'll do anything if we

wasn't lookin'," hotly replied Skinny.



"That's shore nuff gospel, Thomp. They's sore fer mor'n one thing.

They got aplenty when Buck went on th' warpath, an they's hankerin' to

git square," remarked Johnny Nelson, stealing the pie, a rare treat,

of his neighbor when that unfortunate individual was not looking. He

had it halfway to his mouth when its former owner, Jimmy Price, a boy

of eighteen, turned his head and saw it going.



"Hi-yi! Yu clay-bank coyote, drap thet pie! Did yu ever see such a

son-of-a-gun fer pie?" he plaintively asked Red Connors, as he grabbed

a mighty handful of apples and crust. "Pie'll kill yu some day, yu

bob-tailed jack! I had an uncle that died onct. He et too much pie an'

he went an' turned green, an so'll yu if yu don't let it alone."



"Yu ought'r seed th' pie Johnny had down in Eagle Flat," murmured

Lanky Smith reminiscently. "She had feet that'd stop a stampede.

Johnny was shore loco about her. Swore she was the finest blossom that

ever growed." Here he choked and tears of laughter coursed down his

weather-beaten face as he pictured her. "She was a dainty Mexican,

about fifteen han's high an' about sixteen han's around. Johnny used

to chalk off when he hugged her, usen't yu, Johnny? One night when he

had got purty well around on th' second lap he run inter a feller jest

startin' out on his fust. They hain't caught that Mexican yet."



Nelson was pelted with everything in sight. He slowly wiped off the

pie crust and bread and potatoes. "Anybody'd think I was a busted grub

wagon," he grumbled. When he had fished the last piece of beef out of

his ear he went out and offered to stand treat. As the round-up was

over, they slid into their saddles and raced for Cowan's saloon at

Buckskin.



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