The Devil’s Dooryard

A Complete Novelette

by W. C. Tuttle

Author of “Figures of Speech,” “No Wonder,” etc.

“I has to disagree with yuh, cowboy. There is some romance left. A little barb-wire and a few sheep don’t cut the romance out of the cow-land. She’s there, Sleepy.”

“Where?” I asks politely. “Me and you ain’t found none of it, Hashknife. Since we shook loose from Willer Crick we ain’t done nothin’ more romantic than gettin’ bucked off or lettin’ a gun go off accidental. There ain’t a man left in the cow-country that would get ambition if somebody called him a liar, and the villains has gone plumb out of the female-stealin’ business.”

“Well, get off your bronc, Sleepy. Folks’ll think you’re a statoo on a horse. I’m too hungry to argue. Git off and look for romance, cowboy.”

“In this town? Shucks. False fronts, licensed gamblin’-house, livery-stable, general merchandise store and a barber-shop. Romance ——!”

“We-e-e-ll, get off. Some ham and eggs looks plenty romantic to me.”

I gets off my bronc, limbers up my legs and looks around. The sign on the store proclaims it to be the Sundown Mercantile Company.

“Sundown City,” says Hashknife. “She’s a cow-town, pure and simple.”

“Pure and simple ——!” says I.

“Why argue?” he says, sarcastic-like. “All day long you finds fault. You’d kick if yuh was goin’ to get hung, Sleepy Stevens. Ain’t nothin’ right in your eyes?”

“Pure and simple ——”

I reckon the argument had gone far enough, but that wasn’t no way to bust it up. A bullet splinters the top of the tie-rack, another one busts the glass in the store-window and another one scorches a lousy dog which was asleep in the shade of the saloon porch, and it went ki-yi-ing off down the street. Three punchers comes gallivantin’ out of the saloon-door, sifting lead back inside, while several more oozes out the back door, hunting for a place to get behind. I never seen so much lead wasted and nobody saturated. Somebody heezes more bullets in our direction, and I stands there with my mouth wide open until Hashknife kicks my feet from under me, drops a rifle in my lap and then does a dive across the sidewalk.

“Yuh might do a little somethin’ for yourself,” says he, as I sits there digging dirt out of my eyes from the last bullet. Then he yells:

“Sleepy, you —— fool, get under cover! Ain’tcha got no sense?”

I crawls under the sidewalk and sprawls beside him.

“Yuh ain’t got the sense that —— gave geese in Ireland,” says he. “Watcha settin’ over there for? You ain’t got no brains a-tall.”

“I never got hit,” says I.

“You never got— Saya-a-y! Oh, you didn’t get hit, eh? Well, that’s too bad!”

“Well, what they shootin’ at me for?”

“We might ask ’em—some time. Dang yuh!”

That last wasn’t for me. A puncher raised up out of a wagon-box across the street and his bullet plowed a furrow in the sidewalk between me and Hashknife. Hashknife’s .45-70 spoke its little piece, and soon we seen that feller hop a circle plumb around the corner. Somebody else took a shot at him on the wing, but I reckon that he was so bow-legged that he didn’t get hit.

Another Johnny Wise got up on the roof of that gambling-house and begins to spin lead promiscuous-like, sort of protecting himself with the top of the false front, but he didn’t reckon on anybody using a rifle on his fort. He wasn’t shooting at us, but we didn’t mind that. Hashknife lines up on that false front and his first bullet kicked a hole in them old boards that you could shove your hand through.

Mister Johnny Wise just upended over the ridge of the building and took the high dive over the other side. Somebody creased the peak of the roof just a second after his panties got away from there.

“You keep on and you’ll hurt somebody,” says I. “’Pears to me that you’re horning into this shindig without knowing the facts of the case. You may be shooting at our side.”

“In a case like that, I ain’t got no side, Sleepy. I has been shot at and the same makes me angry.”

“Sa-a-ay,” says a voice kinda behind us, and we turns our heads to see a little bow-legged puncher hugging the side of the building.

“My ——!” gasps Hashknife. “Hello, Windy.”

The bow-legged hombre stares at us and then begins to laugh.

“Hashknife Hartley, yuh old son-of-a-gun! Where about in —— did yuh come from?”

“Git down!” yells Hashknife, as the feller starts to come over to us.

“Thank yuh,” says he. “I plumb forgot them or’nery Bar 20 cow-burglars.”

He gets down on his belly and comes angling over to us, and him and Hashknife shakes hands laying down.

“Sleepy, meet Windy Woods. Windy used to be with the Hashknife.”

“Yore bunkie?” asks Windy, pointing at me.

“Yeah. Some human drawback, Windy. I has to tell him when to chaw and kick him when it’s time to spit. I shore has a lot of chores with that pelican.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw! Howdja ever get so far north, Hashknife?”

“Follerin’ Sleepy. Part Eskimo. Kinda hankers for home scenes. What’s gone wrong in the saloon?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Windy peers over the edge of the sidewalk and gets dusted with a bullet. Then he ducks down low and reaches for his cigaret-papers.

“Had a killin’ over there a while ago. My boss, old Mike Haley, mingles lead with Blazer Thorn, who own that —— Bar 20, and they both cashes in.

“Then some of the Bar 20 slaves gits into their heads that they must do something naughty with their six-guns, and I— I dunno whether anybody else hooked a harp or not. Most of the Bar 20 are inside the saloon, except one which is on the roof of the gamblin’-house.”

“He ain’t up there now,” says Hashknife; “chased him over the edge. One of ’em got in a wagon-box over there, but I made the old box leak and he sloped.”

“Yeah, I know,” says Windy, sad-like. “That was me.”

“I begs yore pardon,” says Hashknife. “Why didn’t yuh holler?”

“Holler ——! I didn’t have none comin’. I thought you was some more of them Bar 20’s, so I circled to get yuh from behind, but I got a look at yuh and then I knowed you was just company comin’ to our party.”

“How many in your outfit, Windy?”

“Me.”

“Oh!” grunts Hashknife. “They was all shoo tin’ at you?”

“All except ‘Snag’ Thorn—thankin’ him very kindly.”

“Good shot?”

“Ve-e-e-ry good. Yuh see, it was his pa that got a one-way ticket to ——, and sonny feels bad. Danged bunch of cow-thieves! I reckon they aimed to wipe out the Circle Dot, but li’l bow-legs was too fast. I’m foreman of the Circle Dot, Hashknife.

“Yep. Foreman, cow-hands, cook, and chambermaid. Me and old Mike run the place fine, in spite of him crabbin’ all the time. Poor old devil. Tough? Mm-m-m! Blazer Thorn heezed five .45’s into him but he hung on to the bar and emptied his gun into Blazer. Betcha that saloon looks be-yutiful inside.”

“What was you doin’?” asks Hashknife.

“Me? Aw, I couldn’t help Mike none and then my thoughts turned to the old man Woods’ li’l bow-legged offspring, and I picked up one of the Bar 20 punchers in my arms and packed him plumb to the door, while I backs out.

“Then I kicks him in the seat of the pants, rakes the saloon with me gun, and humped into that wagon-box. Nobody knowed where I went until you sent me a message to get out of there, and then them Bar 20’s are so flustered that they missed me somethin’ rediculous.”

“Better keep your head down,” advises Hashknife, when Windy peeks over the edge.

“Looky!” grunts Windy. “Sons of guns want peace.”

There’s a white handkerchief waving out of the saloon-door and then a man comes out, looks around and motions for the rest to come out, which they does, packing a man with them.

They crosses the street to a wagon, wherein they places their man, and then they drives away, two men in the wagon and three more on horses. Then another man rides out from behind the saloon, sees us and comes over with both hands in sight. He’s the dark, hatchet-faced person, sort of serious-looking, and sets his bronc like a regular puncher. We’re on the sidewalk now and he pulls up near us and says:

“Woods, I’m kinda sorry this happened. I ain’t extendin’ no sympthy to the Circle Dot, yuh understand, but I don’t like this six-to-one fightin’.”

“I didn’t get hurt, none to speak about,” says Windy, “and I didn’t hang out no white flag. If yuh asks me, Snag, I’d say that yo’re payin’ money to a lot of danged poor shots.”

He turns slow-like, and looks down the road. Then he turns back to us.

“You ought to be glad,” says he.

“Yeah?”

“What’s goin’ be done with the Circle Dot?” he asks.

“The same of which is none of your —— business, Thorn. I reckon the three of us can wiggle along—as long as we’ve got any cows left to foller around.”

He just sets there and looks at us, and I can see that he’s got the face of a killer, but he don’t make no break for his gun. He looks real hard at Hashknife, sort of sizing him up, and then he turns his horse and rides away.

“Bad hombre?” I asks.

“Well,” says Windy, “he’s called ‘Snag.’ They don’t make ’em faster with a gun, but he’s got pe-culiar ideas. I don’t reckon Snag would shoot a man in the back nor quarrel with a drunk man and I ain’t never heard of him swearin’ at anybody, but he’s a chip off the old block, and Blazer Thorn was plumb pizen in a fight.”

“What did yuh mean by ‘three of us?’” I asks.

“You two and me. I’m givin’ yuh each a job.”

“Well,” says Hashknife after a while, “a feller’s got to get a job once in a while, I reckon, ain’t he, Sleepy? Sleepy’s looking for romance, Windy. Know what romance is?”

“Yes,” says Windy, “I don’t, but if it is somethin’ yuh can find in the or’neriest danged cow-country on earth you’ll find her here on the Sundown range, y’betcha. There’s everythin’ here except peaceable people. Let’s get poor old Mike and make some funeral arrangements.”

We buries old Mike the next day at Sundown City and there wasn’t much of a audience. The preacher hurried so he’d have time to say a few words over the remains of Blazer Thorn, and then we went to the Circle Dot.

“Hackamore” Allen, the sheriff, comes out to the ranch and kinda sets around a while. He’s a gloomy-looking jasper with a tired eye, and he radiates cheer like a undertaker.

“Whatcha goin’ to do with the ranch, Windy?” he asks.

“Run it.”

“You don’t own it.”

“What the —— has that got to do with it, Hack? She don’t owe nobody a cent, and there’s over a thousand head of good cows—or was, until the last time the Bar 20 branded.”

“Yeah? Well, I reckon I’ll be driftin’ on.”

He nods to me and Hashknife, and then rides back down the road.

“Windy,” says Hashknife. “Would yuh mind gossipin’ a little? Me and Sleepy don’t sabe the state of affairs around here.”

“Just ordinary,” says Windy. “She begins quite a long time ago, gents. This here range used to be milk, honey and brotherly love, you know it? Sure she did. Blazer Thorn and Mike Haley was thicker than thieves until one day Mike stops for supper at the Bar 20. I reckon that Mike had a scoop or two under his belt and he feels comical. He says to Blazer, ‘Know why I eats here so often?’ Blazer says, ‘Why?’

“Old Mike says, ‘I like the taste of my own beef.’

“Well, Blazer must ’a’ been dyspeptic or somethin’ that day, ’cause he kicks back his chair and calls Mike a —— liar. Mike’s plumb hard-boiled and he don’t think that any man knows enough about him to call him a name like that, but some punchers grabbed the two of ’em and stopped a piece of gun-play. Blazer orders Mike off the ranch. Mike was joshin’ at first, but he’s been losin’ a lot of stock, and he gets to thinkin’—him bein’ sore anyway, and well—yuh know them things grows. Blazer’s plumb wild. Swears that the Circle Dot is stealin’ his cows, the same of which changes this country a heap, scaring out the bees and smearin’ the honey in the mud.

“Both outfits draws a dead-line. Ours is that old cross-roads, and the Bar 20 declares Cow Crick to be the stoppin’-place of the Circle Dot outfit. Then Blazer and Mike makes a agreement. Both of them pelicans are deadly with a gun. Blazer has a wife and this boy. Yeah, this started when Snag was mostly a ganglin’ kid, practisin’ with a .22.

“Both of them hombres knows it’s suicide to meet. Mike ain’t wistful to make Mrs. Thorn a widder with a orphing kid, so he agrees. Mike is to use Saturday as his day in town, and Blazer is to appear in person on Wednesdays.

“Fine. Folks got so used to it that they takes it for granted. Well, Mrs. Thorn goes the way of all critters, and Snag grows up, but the feud goes on just the same—only worse. It got so that the punchers of both outfits acts mean towards each other. There is a few killin’s.

“I reckon that Mike forgot. He sold a bunch of cows to a buyer from Chicago, and the man is in a hurry to get away; so Mike meets him in Sundown City—on Wednesday. You sabe the rest, I reckon. Mike and Blazer comes face to face in the saloon. Blooey! They ain’t met before for ten years, but they didn’t need no introduction. I reckon that’s all. My gosh, I ain’t talked that much for three years.”

“Is there anything in this rustlin’ stuff?” asks Hashknife.

“Everythin’,” nods Windy. “Everybody suspects everybody else, but she’s a cinch that the Bar 20 brands more than their share. Funny thing, though, Hashknife, nobody knows where the stock goes. Just two ways out. Yuh can take a herd to the railroad at Hollister or yuh can take ’em back through Hangman’s Pass and over to Blue Nose. There ain’t no other way out of this basin, but no cows have been taken either way.”

“Can’t yuh take ’em over the divide?” I asks.

“Naw. Not unless the cows has wings.”

“That’s it,” grins Hashknife. “You been lookin’ at the ground when yuh should ’a’ been lookin’ in the air, Windy. They flew.”

“Mebby. Honest to gosh, I’m willin’ to believe it, Hashknife.”

“Who’s this comin’?” I asks.

“That’s Bowers. He owns the Bar B outfit, which is between us and the Bar 20. He’s likely comin’ up here to beef about somebody stealin’ his danged cows.”

Windy was right. This Bowers is a melancholy-looking jasper with sorrel hair, and he talks like he had a mouthful of mush.

“Yeah, I’m losin’ cows all the danged time,” he wails, humping over his saddle-horn. “Wisht I knowed what to do.”

“I’ll tell yuh what yuh ought to do,” suggests Hashknife.

“What?”

“Get your adenoids cut out.”

“My addy-noids?”

“Uh-huh. Your talk sounds like a bogged-down calf. You know what I mean—kinda glub-glub.”

“Well,” says he foolish-like: “Well, I’ll be ——!”

Then he looks over at Windy, who looks as serious as a funeral.

“You sabe what he means?”

“Sure. He’s right, too.”

“Well. Mebbe that’s right. Huh!”

Then Mr. Bowers swings his horse around and goes poco poco off down the road, deep in thought.

“What’s adenoids, Hashknife?” asks Windy. “I know danged well that Bowers ought to have his cut out, yuh understand, but I ain’t clear in my own mind what they be.”

“Somethin’ that grows in his head,” says Hashknife.

“Sure,” nods Windy. “I hope they has to remove his whole danged head to get at ’em.”

“What did the sheriff mean, Windy, when he wanted to know what was going to be done with the Circle Dot? Didn’t Haley have no relatives?”

“I dunno—dang it all, Sleepy. Never said nothin’ to nobody about any. Never left no will nor nothin’. Reckon he feels that he’s so danged tough that he’ll outlive anybody else anyway, so why make a will? I’ve got somethin’—wait.”

Windy goes into the house and brings out a couple of sheets of paper.

“This is all I can find,” says he. “Looks like Mike started to write a letter and then tore it up, ’cause this is just part of it.”

The top part of the letter had been torn off, but what we’ve got reads like this:

--family, and I reckon you’ll have it all when I pass out. Feller back East tells me where he thinks you are, so I’m taking a chance. I would rather like to see you, but this ain’t no--

And the rest is torn off.

“Here is the envylope,” says Windy. “Same as the old man’s, only his middle letter was H, and this’n is J. What is a em-po-ree-um?”

“I dunno,” says Hashknife, looking at the envelope. “Must be somethin’.”

“My ——, you’ve got a fine head on yuh,” says Windy. “You’re goin’ to do well.”

“I sure has,” grins Hashknife, “and I’ll prove it to yuh, Windy. I’ve got a friend in Frisco—a lawyer, and he’ll find out for us.”

“Lawyers costs money, Hashknife.”

“This one won’t. I packed this whippoorwill out of a tight corner on the Barbary Coast one night and I’m bettin’ he ain’t forgot it. He comes danged near bein’ a sailor, y’betcha. Crimps, they calls ’em, and I sure put a crimp into about six of ’em.

“He wasn’t very heavy and I just had enough hooch under my belt to shoot straight, but at that I had to hit two with my gun-barrel. If M. J. Haley is at the em-po-ree-um, I’m bettin’ that Billy Winters will find him. Sounds like a gamblin’-house to me.”

“All right, cowboy,” grins Windy. “You do the writin’, will yuh? I ain’t noways pencil-wise—me.”

Hashknife writes the letter, explaining the best he can, and we posts it the next day in Sundown City. We don’t meet none of the Bar 20 bunch, but we does run into the sheriff and he seems glad to see us.

“Nice weather,” says Hashknife, and then adds, “I like it hot.”

“Yeah?” says the sheriff, and then he says to Windy—

“Baldy Willis got shot yesterday.”

“Did he?” says Windy. “Accidental, I suppose. Gol dang it, sheriff, they ought to have a school where a feller like him can learn to handle a gun and—”

“He didn’t get shot accidental,” says the sheriff, deliberate-like.

“Oh!” grunts Windy. “’Sassed somebody, eh?”

“Nope. He was crossin’ around at the lower end of Devil’s Dooryard and got a rifle-bullet plumb through his shoulder.”

Windy squints at the sheriff and then at us. Then he rubs his nose, kinda thoughtful-like, and says—

“Well, I reckon you can talk a little more, sheriff.”

“Baldy says that he was knocked plumb hazy, but he seems to remember hearin’ a voice say, ‘Maybe you’ll keep off the Circle Dot Range after this.’”

“That’s a lie!” snaps Windy, dropping his hand to his gun.

“Now, now, don’t get in a hurry,” says the sheriff. “I’m just saying what Baldy said. Yuh can’t blame me for what somebody else said, can yuh?”

“Yuh hadn’t ought to repeat scandal,” says Hashknife. “Now, we’ll tell it to somebody, kinda exaggeratin’ it a little, and they’ll tell it to somebody else, kinda exaggeratin’ it a little, and by and by she gets to be a regular whale of a statement.”

“I’m just tellin’ what Baldy said,” insists the sheriff. “He says he thinks he heard that, and—”

“If yuh go out to the Bar 20 soon, yuh can tell Baldy that I think he’s a —— liar,” says Windy.

“Bar 20?” says Hashknife, like he’d never heard of it before. “Oh yeah. Ain’t that the place where all their cows has twin calves, Windy?”

“Uh-huh. Funny, ain’t it. The Circle Dot cows are like Mary’s little lamb. They never bring nothin’ but their tails behind them.”

“I don’t know who shot Baldy,” says the sheriff, “but I do know that I’m plumb sick and tired of the way things is goin’. The Bar 20 is losin’ cows every day and Bowers is wailin’ all the time about his cows being missin’. I tell yuh, it’s got to stop.”

“You —— tootin’ she has!” snaps Windy. “The Circle Dot ain’t bothered yuh none about missin’ cows, but if anybody asks yuh—we’re loser, y’betcha. I reckon you’ve got plenty to do, dry-nursin’ Snag Thorn and ‘Blubber’ Bowers, so I won’t take up none of yore time. Sabe?”

“Bowers said—” begins the sheriff, but Windy stops him.

“Bowers be ——!”

“He’s got complaints.”

“Adenoids,” says Hashknife. “Aggravated case. Yuh ought to send him to a doctor.”

“Addy—what?” asks the sheriff.

“Noids. Shouldn’t be surprised if they’re doin’ the work that his brain ought to do. You’ve got a touch of ’em, too. How’s your tonsils?”

“My which?”

“Let’s play a game of pool, Windy,” suggests Hashknife. “It’s too hot to stand here in the sun. See yuh later, sheriff.”

“Baldy might not live,” says the sheriff, offhanded-like.

“Well,” says Windy, “ther’s enough of ’em at the Bar 20 to bury him decently, but tell ’em not to fire no salutes over his grave, ’cause they might accident’ly hurt each other. Adios.”

We left the sheriff standing there, chawing at the corner of his mustache, and we went into the saloon and started a game. The bartender looks us over, sort of suspicious-like, but can’t refuse to let us play.

“All I asks of you fellers is this. If any of the Bar 20 shows up, fer ——’s sake don’t shoot toward my back-bar,” says he. “That last ruckus ruined all my whisky-glasses and everybody has had to drink out of beer-glasses, and they ain’t got no sense of proportion. Sabe?”

Bowers comes in after while and stands around watching the game. After while he says to Windy, confidential-like—

“I been up to the Bar 20.”

“Well, well,” grunts Windy, amazed-like. “You’re gettin’ to be a regular traveler. When did yuh get back and how are the folks?”

“Baldy ain’t expected to live.”

“Who don’t expect him to live—Baldy?”

“Nope. He’s danged awful low and might pass out any time.”

“He ain’t got nothin’ on the rest of ’em,” states Windy, “and they can all pass out, for all of me.”

“Snag says somebody has got to pay for shootin’ Baldy.”

“Well, if he has to pay what Baldy’s worth, I reckon it won’t break nobody.”

“Somebody took seven white-faced cows of mine out of my Salt Spring Corral, and I can’t find ’em,” says Bowers, complainin’-like.

“Yuh sure got troubles, ain’t yuh, feller?” laughs Hashknife, squinting down his cue. “Yuh ought to have patience, don’t yuh know it?

“Ever hear of Job? No? He had boils. Fact. Millions of ’em, but he stuck it out and didn’t whimper.

“You’ve got a cinch alongside of poor old Job. You ain’t got nothin’ but loss of beef, other folks’ troubles and adenoids. Get cheerful, why don’t yuh?”

“Well, dawggone it, I lost seventeen head of cows last—”

“I tell yuh what to do,” says Hashknife, serious-like. “You make out a list describin’ your lost cows, givin’ the name, age and general disposition and mail it to us, will yuh? Fine!”

“What good will that do yuh?”

“No good on earth; but yuh hankers to tell about ’em so bad that I just thought it might relieve yuh to set down and write it out—and I don’t like to listen to your voice. Honest to grandma, I don’t, Bowers. I ain’t jokin’.”

Bowers goes out, talking to himself, and Windy sets down in a chair.

“Mamma mine!” he chuckles. “Hashknife, you sure knows how to talk to folks. I wish I had eddication like that. All I can do is say something that is either plumb full of sugar, or else it’s fightin’ talk.

“You can say awful things to people and send ’em away talking to themselves, and they don’t know whether to get sore or shake hands with yuh. I’ll say you’re a wonder.”

For a couple of days we had perfect peace at the ranch. We don’t do a danged thing—much, except set around and wait for trouble. Windy insists that the Bar 20 is going to make trouble for us; so we polishes up all the guns and waits for the explosion.

Bowers pesticates up our way and sets down with us. I reckon he’s lost so much stock that it’s on his mind all the time.

“I’ll be busted in a little while,” he wails. “I just sets there and watches my money disappear. Was over to the Bar 20 yeste’-day. Doctor don’t know yet if Baldy will pull through or not. I asked Snag if he had any suspicions who shot Baldy, and he said he sure did. I asked him who.”

“He told yuh it was none of your business,” says Hashknife.

Bowers looks at Hashknife queer-like and then says—

“How did yuh know that?”

“Deducted it, Blubber. I could tell that by lookin’ at yuh. Tomorrow I’m goin’ over and talk with Snag Thorn.”

“You are not!” declares Windy.

“Uh-huh, I sure am. Now, I know what I want to do, Windy.”

“You’ll get killed sure as thunder.”

“Thanks, Windy.”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” says Bowers. “I sure wouldn’t.”

“Which entirely makes up my mind,” grins Hashknife. “Why don’t you rise to object, Sleepy?”

“Go ahead,” says I. “Ventilation won’t hurt yuh none, I reckon.”

Hashknife went. About noon the next day he saddles his bronc, refuses to let us go with him, and rides away.

“You ain’t got a lick of sense, Hashknife!” yells Windy.

“I know it,” says Hashknife. “This is a job that takes brains, so I’m leavin’ the brains behind me to keep safe.”

“Now, what did he mean, Sleepy?” asks Windy.

“I dunno. The longer I lives with that blamed hatchet-faced cross between a danged fool and a heavenly angel, the less I sabe his wau-wau. Mebbe he wants to commit suicide, but I’m bettin’ money that he ain’t.”

It was about two hours before we seen him come into sight. He pokes into the ranch, takes his saddle off and comes up to the porch, dragging the saddle with him.

“Well, yuh got back, I see,” grins Windy.

“Yuh got good eyesight, Windy. Awful hot today. Got a blister on my heel, too.”

“Well, did yuh bring any messages from the Bar 20, Hashknife?” I asks.

“Uh-huh—two. Long distance, as yuh might say.”

“Meanin’ what?” inquires Windy. Hashknife pulls his saddle over to him and yanks it around. Then he points to a long jagged rip in the fork, where a bullet plowed its way. Then he points to a jagged hole, drilled plumb through the right side of the cantle.

“Read ’em for youselves,” says he, grinning. “The first one busted into the fork and the next one just grazed my boot as I flipped off the saddle.”

“Where?” asks Windy.

“Just across the Cow Crick. I reckon it’s Cow Crick. I’m just goin’ up the far bank, when I gets reminded that I ain’t wanted. I humps out of the saddle before the next message arrives. I sure comes close to gettin’ peeled. I lit low down behind the bank and my bronc went across the crick into some willers. I sure tried to spot that bushwhacker, but he was too far away. A magpie gave him away by flyin’ over his location and then doin’ a upward twist, but there wasn’t much between him and me, and the danged fool shoots too close for comfort. Then I had to chase that fool bronc for half a mile before I got my hands on him, and I got a blister on my heel—dang the luck!”

“You ought to cuss your luck,” says Windy. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Must be a big blister,” complains Hashknife. “Got my feet wet, too.”

“I hope you’re satisfied,” says I, and Hashknife nods.

“Uh-huh, I’m satisfied of one thing, Sleepy.”

“What’s that?”

“I dunno—yet. I’ve got to do somethin’ for that blister.”

Hashknife limps down to the bunk-house, dragging his saddle.

“What do yuh reckon he found out?” asks Windy. “Why is he satisfied?”

“Don’t ask me, Windy, and it won’t do yuh no good to ask him. A clam is a howling hyena beside that jasper, when he wants to keep still about his thoughts.”

Then he wants to see the place they calls the Devil’s Dooryard; so Windy guides us to that place. It sure looks like it might ’a’ been. Once on a time it was a volcano which busted out the side of the mountain and it sure made a barren spot out of a piece of country about two miles wide and three miles long.

Man, that must ’a’ been a hot place at one time. There ain’t a danged thing growing there. She’s just a humped-up mass of pillars, boulders and jagged rocks, kind of red and yaller and melted-like. The floor of it is solid rock, where the lava spewed over the side of the mountain. This rock is kinda like glass, having been heated so blamed hot.

We rides up one side of it, almost to the top, but she’s all alike. It ain’t no place to ride a horse on account of the sharp rocks. At the top is just one high cliff of the same rocks, sticking two or three hundred feet high into the air. The whole divide is one series of cliffs. We rides back to the foot of it and sits down to rest in the shade of a pillar.

“This place is sure well named,” opines Hashknife. “I reckon it was too hot for the devil, so he moved to his present location. This is where that Bar 20 puncher got shot, eh?”

“That’s what they say,” nods Windy. “It’s about five miles to the Bar 20 from here. I reckon he just hung on and let his bronc take him home.”

“Do yuh reckon he lied?” asks Hashknife.

“No, I don’t. Barrin’ the fact that he works for the Bar 20, Baldy ain’t such a bad hombre. I worked with him on the Seven Bar Seven Horse outfit, and he ain’t the kind that would lie thataway. Likely he just got it in his mind, don’t yuh know? Kinda knowin’ he was on the Circle Dot Range, and then gettin’ shot thataway, he might ’a’ imagined somebody yelled at him.”

“I reckon somebody yelled at him,” says Hashknife.

“Yuh think he—uh—told the truth?” asks Windy.

“I dunno. Mebbe they did and mebbe they didn’t. If they did, the Circle Dot has got it on the Bar 20, ’cause nobody yelled at me, that’s a cinch.”

“I reckon they keeps close watch on us,” opines Windy.

We rides back to the ranch and the next morning we went to Sundown City. As we rides in past the little depot, the agent yells at us and we goes over. He’s got a telegram for us, which reads:

WILL ARRIVE WEDNESDAY. HANG ON UNTIL I GET THERE.

Signed M. J. HALEY.

“Holy henhawks!” explodes Windy. “He’s comin’! Hang on until I get there! That sounds like old Mike’s voice. Betcha forty dollars he’s a go-getter.”

“That’s tomorrow,” says Hashknife. “What’s the nearest station down the line, Windy?”

“Kelly’s Fork. It’s about six miles, but a train don’t stop there unless she’s flagged.”

“We’ll flag her,” says Hashknife. “We’re going to surprise some of these wise jaspers. Sabe? If we waits for him to come here, everybody will see him, don’t yuh see? That’ll make four of us, Windy, and if this here Haley is hard-boiled we can stand off the Bar 20 or any other cow-stealin’ outfit.”

“Yeah, that’s a hy-iu scheme, Hashknife. We’ll just do that little thing. Train is due along there about noon.”

There’s a lot of Bar 20 broncs at the tie-rack, and Hashknife wants to go over and see what the owners look like, but me and Windy points out the error of his ways and tells him that we’ve got to be intact to meet the new owner of the Circle Dot.

“I reckon it’s right,” admits Hashknife, “but I feels that I’m bein’ hoodled out of town. I’d swap lead with all that bunch, Windy—if they can’t shoot any straighter than they did at you.”

“That hombre that bushwhacked you shot straight enough,” says I.

“Nope. He would have hit me both times.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to hit yuh.”

“Never thought of that, Sleepy. Huh! He’s a wonder at missin’, if he didn’t.”

The next day we rides to Kelly’s Fork, and takes a saddled horse for our new boss to ride back. We flagged the train and I’m betting that half of the passengers thought it was a hold-up. The conductor howls like blazes when he finds why we stopped him, but Hashknife says:

“Shucks, you ought to be glad we only want a passenger. We’ll go with yuh.”

The conductor cusses a little more, but swings on to the coach with us and we all pilgrims down the aisle, the conductor calling:

“M. J. Haley! M. J. Haley! M. J. Haley! Is M. J. Haley on board?”

We went through two cars before we gets a response. A tired-looking girl takes the conductor by the sleeve and stops him. He says to her:

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I haven’t time to talk to you now. M. J. Haley! M. J. Haley! Is M. J. Haley on board?”

“I am M. J. Haley,” says the lady. “Is—is somebody looking for me?”

“M. J. Haley?” grunts Windy. “Nun-not M. J. Huh—Haley of the Circle Dot?”

“Yes,” says she, “from San Francisco.”

“Well, get off!” snaps the conductor. “I can’t hold this train all day.”

I grabs her valise, and we staggers down the aisle and swings to the ground.

“Must be a mistake,” opines Windy, scratching his head. “We was lookin’ for a man named M. J. Haley.”

“A lawyer, a Mr. Winters, sent me,” says she. “I am Mary Jane Haley.”

“Well, I hope to die,” gasps Windy. “I hope to die.”

“If yuh don’t shut your mouth you’ll get your tonsils sunburnt,” says Hashknife.

“Well, I’ll be everlastin’ly teetotally jiggered!” grunts Windy. “Whatcha know about that? Was Mike Haley a kin of yours, miss?”

“He was my father’s brother, I believe,” says she, and I can see her eyes laughing at Windy’s funny expression.

“Uh,” says Windy, kinda vacant-like. “Yes’m.”

“Will you take me out to the farm?” she asks.

“Farm?” says Windy, and then looks at Hashknife, whose face is serious. Then Windy looks at her and half-nods his head.

“Yeah—oh sure. Uh-huh, but we don’t call ’em farms, ma’am. We can take yuh out there—in fact, we came after yuh, but——”

Windy glances at her clothes and then looks at Hashknife, who shakes his head and says:

“Yuh see ma’am, we looked for a man person, who natcherally don’t wear skirts, and we ain’t got nothin’ but a saddle-horse and no extra pants and—Sleepy, fer ——’s sake get in on this explanation, will yuh? Standin’ there like a grinnin’ hyener.”

“I think I understand,” says she.

“Bless yuh for that, ma’am,” says Hashknife, wiping his brow. “That —— Sleepy makes me sore sometimes. Oh, he talks a plenty when he ought to keep still.”

M. J. Haley sees the funny side of things and we all laughs together.

“I’ve got a idea,” says Hashknife. “Mebbe that little store over there has overalls, Windy.”

“I would wear them,” says Mary Jane, and Hashknife grins like a fool and says—

“Come on ma’am; if he’s got ’em we’ll get ’em, and if he ain’t got no back room for yuh to dress in I’ll make him come out in the street.”

He had ’em all right. I dunno how Mary Jane got into ’em, but she did. I let her ride my bronc, ’cause the one we brings for M. J. Haley wasn’t no ladies’ saddle-animal. Yuh can mostly always sometimes tell about a feller, if yuh see him on a high-minded bronc, and we wanted M. J. Haley to measure right up to us.

Mary Jane never rode a horse before, but she was game. I knowed danged well that them overalls ached a heap by the time we hit the Circle Dot, but she don’t chirp a bit over discomfort.

Sing Lee has swamped out Mike’s bood-wah for her and we lets her move right in. She ain’t been in there long when Bowers comes poking up the main road. He naturally comes over to see us.

“Blubber has likely lost another cow,” says Windy, but Blubber didn’t speak of lost cows. He rides up to us and says—

“Did he come?”

“Who?” asks Windy.

“The new feller who is goin’ to boss this outfit.”

“There ain’t no feller goin’ to boss this outfit,” states Windy.

“Zasso? Huh. Station agent says that yuh got a telegraft from M. J. Haley who says he’s comin’ today. Train comes in, but nobody gets off. Some of the Bar 20 was down there to see what he looks like.”

“Was they disappointed?” asks Hashknife.

“Natcherally. I comes up to see why he didn’t come. The sheriff was wonderin’ who he was, and I thought maybe you’d—uh——”

“Did yuh?” says Hashknife. “Your thoughts are like your talk, Bowers—kinda suckin’ mud. What’s it any of the sheriff’s business?”

“I dunno. Say, Baldy Willis died this mornin’.”

“——!” says Windy, soft-like. “Poor old Baldy.”

“Uh-huh,” admits Bowers. “But it’s just like I said—he didn’t have no danged business on this range, nohow. When a feller has been warned to keep off——”

“Let your voice fall, Blubber,” says Windy. “You’ve talked enough. Sabe? Me nor none of this outfit had anything to do with killin’ Baldy, and the next hombre what insinuates that we did is goin’ kihootin’ to his God or beat me on the draw. That goes for you, the sheriff or any of that cow-stealin’ Bar 20 outfit. Sabe?”

“Honest to —— I ain’t insinuatin’ nothin’” wails Bowers. “Whatcha ridin’ me fer? I’ve lost twenty-seven head of cows in the last week, and I ain’t——”

“Yo’re all packed, wired and billed for shipment—git off this ranch!” yowls Windy. “I don’t care if somebody steals all your cows! I hope they do. I hope you’re the last calf they slickears. I hope they slaps every brand in the State register on your hide and then adds a dewlap and notches your ears.”

“That ain’t no way to talk,” grumbles Blubber, tearful-like. “I try to git along and——”

“You better do somethin’ besides try to git along,” says Windy. “You just ‘get along,’ Bowers, and get along fast.”

Bowers swings his horse around and points toward home.