The Eagles Heart Page 6

  Harold smiled back into his face, and so it was that the two men parted, for the father, in a flash of insight, understood that no more than this could be gained; but his heart was lighter than it had been for many months as he saw his son ride away from his door.

  "Write often, Harold," he called after them.

  "All right. You let me know how the fight comes out. If they whip you, come out West," was Harold's reply; then he turned in his seat. "Drive ahead, Jack; there's no one now but your folks for whom I care."

  As they drove out along the muddy lanes the hearts of the two boys became very tender. Harold, filled with exaltation by every familiar thing—by the flights of ground sparrows, by the patches of green grass, by the smell of the wind, by the infrequent boom of the prairie chickens—talked incessantly.

  "What makes me maddest," he broke out, "is to think they've cheated me out of seeing one fall and one winter. I didn't see the geese fly south, and now here they are all going north again. Some time I mean to find out where they go to." He took off his hat. "This wind will mighty soon take the white out o' me, won't it?" He was very gay. He slapped his chum on the shoulder and shouted with excitement. "We must keep going, old man, till we strike the buffalo. They are the sign of wild country that is wild. I want to get where there ain't any fences."

  Jack smiled sadly in reply. Harold knew he listened and so talked on. "I must work up a big case of sunburn before I strike Mr. Pratt for a job. Did he have extra horses?"

  "'Bout a dozen. His girl was driving the cattle, but he said——"

  "Girl? What kind of a girl?"

  "Oh, a kind of a tomboy, freckled—chews gum and says 'darn it!' That kind of a girl."

  Harold's face darkened. "I don't like the idea of that girl. She might have heard something, and then it would go hard with me."

  "Don't you worry. The Pratts ain't the kind of people that read newspapers; they didn't stop here but a day, anyhow."

  The sight of Mr. Burns and his wife at the gate moved Harold deeply. Mrs. Burns came hurrying out: "You blessed boy! Get right down and let me hug you," and as he leaped down she put her arms around him as if he were her own son, and Harold's eyes smarted with tears.

  "I declare," said Mr. Burns, "you look like a fightin' cock; must feed you well down there?"

  No note of doubt, hesitation, concealment, or shame was in their greetings and the boy knew it. They all sat around the kitchen, and chatted and laughed as if no ill thing had ever happened to him. Burns uttered the only doubtful word when he said: "I don't know about this running away from things here. I'd be inclined to stay here and fight it out."

  "But it isn't running away, Dad," said Jack. "Harry has always wanted to go West and now is the first time he has really had the chance."

  "That's so," admitted the father. "Still, I'm sorry to see him look like he was running away."

  Mrs. Burns was determined to feed Harry into complete torpor. She put up enough food in a basket to last him to San Francisco at the shortest. Even when the boys had entered the buggy she ordered them to wait while she brought out some sweet melon pickles in a jar to add to the collection.

  "Well, now, good-by," said Harold, reaching down his hand to Mrs. Burns, who seized it in both hers.

  "You poor thing, don't let the Indians scalp ye."

  "No danger o' that," he called back.

  "Be good to yourself," shouted Burns, and the buggy rolled through the gate into the west as the red sun was setting and the prairie cocks were crowing.

  The boys talked their plans all over again while the strong young horse spattered through the mud. Slowly the night fell, and as they rode under the branches of the oaks, Jack took courage to say:

  "I wish Miss Yardwell had been here, Harry."

  "It's no use talking about her; she don't care two straws for me; if she had she would have written to me, at least."

  "Her mother may have been dying."

  "Even that needn't keep her from letting me know or sending some word. She didn't care for me—she was just trying to convert me."

  "She wasn't the kind of a girl who flirts. By jinks! You should see her look right through the boys that used to try to walk home with her after prayer meeting. They never tried it a second time. She's a wonder that way. One strange thing about her, she never acts like other girls. You know what I mean? She's different. She's going to be a singer, and travel around giving concerts—she told me so once."

  Harold was disposed to be fair. "I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me. I suppose she felt that way, and tried to help me." Here he paused and his voice changed. "But when I'm a cattle king out West and can buy her the best home in Des Moines—maybe she won't pity me so much. Anyhow, there's nothing left for me but to emigrate. There's no use stayin' around here. Out there is the place for me now."

  Jack put Harold down at the station and turned over to him all the money he had in the world. Harold took it, saying:

  "Now you'll get this back with interest, old man. I need it now, but I won't six months from now. I'm going to strike a job before long—don't you worry."

  Their good-by was awkward and constrained, and Harold felt the parting more keenly than he dared to show. Jack rode away crying—a brother could not have been more troubled. It seemed that the bitterness of death was in this good-by.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VII

  ON THE WING

  When Harold arose the next morning his cheeks were still red with the touch of the wind and sun and he looked like a college student just entering upon a vacation. His grace and dignity of bearing set him apart from the rough workmen with whom he ate, and he did not exchange a single word with anyone but the landlord. As soon as breakfast was over he went out into the town.

  Roseville had only one street, and it was not difficult to learn that Pratt had not yet appeared upon the scene. It was essentially a prairie village; no tree broke the smooth horizon line. A great many emigrants were in motion, and their white-topped wagons suggested the sails of minute craft on the broad ocean as they came slowly up the curve to the East and fell away down the slope to the West. To all of these Harold applied during the days that followed, but received no offer which seemed to promise so well as that of Mr. Pratt, so he waited. At last he came, a tall, sandy-bearded fellow, who walked beside a four-horse team drawing two covered wagons tandem. Behind him straggled a bunch of bony cattle and some horses, herded by a girl and a small boy. The girl rode a mettlesome little pony, sitting sidewise on a man's saddle.

  "Wal—I d'n know," the old man replied in answer to Harold's question. "I did 'low fer to get some help, but Jinnie she said she'd bring 'em along fer fifty cents a day, an' she's boss, stranger. If she's sick o' the job, why, I'll make out with ye. Jinnie, come here."

  Jinnie rode up, eyeing the stranger sharply. "What's up, Dad?"

  "Here's another young fellow after your job."

  "Well, if he'll work cheap he can have it," replied the girl promptly. "I don't admire to ride in this mud any longer."

  Pratt smiled. "I reckon that lets you in, stranger, ef we can come to terms. We ain't got any money to throw away, but we'll do the best we kin."

  "I'll tell you what you do. You turn that pony and saddle over to me when we get through, and I'll call it square."

  "Well, I reckon you won't," said the girl, throwing back her sunbonnet as if in challenge. "That's my pony, and nobody gets him without blood, and don't you forget it, sonny."

  She was a large-featured girl, so blonde as to be straw-colored, even to the lashes of her eyes, but her teeth were very white, and her lips a vivid pink. She had her father's humorous smile, and though her words were bluff, her eyes betrayed that she liked Harold at once.

  Harold smiled back at her. "Well, I'll take the next best, that roan there."

  The boy burst into wild clamor: "Not by a darn sight, you don't. That's my horse, an' no sucker like you ain't goin' to ride him, nuther."

  "Why don't you rid
e him?" asked Harold.

  The boy looked foolish. "I'm goin' to, some day."

  "He can't," said the girl, "and I don't think you can."

  Pratt grinned. "Wal, you see how it is, youngster, you an' me has got to get down to a money basis. Them young uns claim all my stawk."

  Harold said: "Pay me what you can," and Pratt replied: "Wal, throw your duds into that hind wagon. We've got to camp somewhere 'fore them durn critters eat up all the fences."

  As Harold was helping to unhitch the team the girl came around and studied him with care.

  "Say, what's your name?"

  "Moses," he instantly replied.

  "Moses what?"

  "Oh, let it go at Mose."

  "Hain't you got no other name?"

  "I did have but the wind blew it away."

  "What was it?"

  "Moses N. Hardluck."

  "You're terrible cute, ain't you?"

  "Not so very, or I wouldn't be working for my board."

  "You hain't never killed yourself with hard work, by the looks o' them hands."

  "Oh, I've been going to school."

  "A'huh! I thought you had. You talk pretty hifalutin' fer a real workin' man. I tell ye what I think—you're a rich man's son, and you've run away."

  "Come, gal, get that coffee bilin'," called the mother. Mrs. Pratt was a wizened little woman, so humped by labor and chills and fever that she seemed deformed. Her querulousness was not so much ill-natured as plaintive.

  "He says his name is Mose Hardluck," Harold heard the girl say, and that ended all further inquiry. He became simply "Mose" to them.

  There was a satisfying charm to the business of camping out which now came to be the regular order of living to him. By day the cattle, thin and poor, crawled along patiently, waiting for feeding time to come, catching at such bunches of dry grass as came within their reach, and at their heels rode Harold on an old black mare, his clear voice urging the herd forward. At noon and again at night Pratt halted the wagons beside the road and while the women got supper or dinner Harold helped Pratt take care of the stock, which he was obliged to feed. "I started a little airly," he said at least a score of times in the first week. "But I wanted to get a good start agin grass come."

  Harold was naturally handy at camping, and his ready and skillful hands became very valuable around the camp fire. He was quick and cheerful, and apparently tireless, and before the end of the week Jennie said:

  "Say, Mose, you can ride my horse if you want to."

  "Much obliged, but I guess I'll hang on to the black mare."

  At this point Dannie, not to be outdone, chirped shrilly: "You can break my horse if you want to."

  So a few days later Harold, with intent to check the girl in her growing friendliness, as well as to please himself, replied: "I guess I'll break Dan's colt."

  He began by caressing the horse at every opportunity, leaning against him, or putting one arm over his back, to let him feel the weight of his body. At last he leaped softly up and hung partly over his back. Naturally the colt shied and reared, but Harold dropped off instantly and renewed his petting and soothing. It was not long before the pony allowed him to mount, and nothing remained but to teach him to endure the saddle and the bridle. This was done by belting him and checking him to a pad strapped upon his back. He struggled fiercely to rid himself of these fetters. He leaped in the air, fell, rolled over, backing and wheeling around and around till Dan grew dizzy watching him.

  A bystander once said: "Why don't you climb onto him and stay with him till he gets sick o' pitchin'; that's what a broncho buster would do."

  "Because I don't want him 'busted'; I want him taught that I'm his friend," said Harold.

  In the end "Jack," as Harold called the roan, walked up to his master and rubbed his nose against his shoulder. Harold then stripped away the bridle and pad at once, and when he put them on next day Jack winced, but did not plunge, and Harold mounted him. A day or two later the colt worked under the saddle like an old horse. Thereafter it was a matter of making him a horse of finished education. He was taught not to trot, but to go directly from the walk to the "lope." He acquired a swift walk and a sort of running trot—that is, he trotted behind and rose in front with a wolflike action of the fore feet. He was guided by the touch of the rein on the neck or by the pressure of his rider's knee on his shoulder.

  He was taught to stand without hitching and to allow his rider to mount on either side. This was a trick which Harold learned of a man who had been with the Indians. "You see," he said, "an Injun can't afford to have a horse that will only let him climb on from the nigh side, he has to get there in a hurry sometimes, and any side at all will do him."

  It was well that Jack was trained early, for as they drew out on the open prairie and the feed became better the horses and cattle were less easy to drive. Each day the interest grew. The land became wilder and the sky brighter. The grass came on swiftly, and crocuses and dandelions broke from the sod on the sunny side of smooth hills. The cranes, with their splendid challenging cries, swept in wide circles through the sky. Ducks and geese moved by in myriads, straight on, delaying not. Foxes barked on the hills at sunset, and the splendid chorus of the prairie chickens thickened day by day.

  It was magnificent, and Harold was happy. True, it was not all play. There were muddy roads to plod through and treacherous sloughs to cross. There were nights when camp had to be pitched in rain, and mornings when he was obliged to rise stiff and sore to find the cattle strayed away and everything wet and grimy. But the sunshine soon warmed his back and dried up the mud under his feet. Each day the way grew drier and the flowers more abundant. Each day signs of the wild life thickened. Antlers of elk, horns of the buffalo, crates of bones set around shallow water holes, and especially the ever-thickening game trails furrowing the hills filled the boy's heart with delight. This was the kind of life he wished to see. They were now beyond towns, and only occasionally small settlements relieved the houseless rolling plains. Soon the Missouri, that storied and muddy old stream, would offer itself to view.

  "Mose" was now indispensable to the Pratt "outfit." He built fires, shot game, herded the cattle, greased the wagons, curried horses, and mended harness. He never complained and never grew sullen. Although he talked but little, the family were fond of him, but considered him a "singular critter." He had lost his pallor. His skin was a clear brown, and being dressed in rough clothing, wide hat, and gauntlet gloves, he made a bold and dashing herder, showing just the right kind of wear and tear. Occasionally, when a chance to earn a few dollars offered, Pratt camped and took a job, and Harold shared in the wages.

  He spent a great deal of his pocket money in buying cartridges for his revolver. He shot at everything which offered a taking mark, and became so expert that Dan bowed down before him, and Mrs. Pratt considered him dangerous.

  "It ain't natural fer to be so durned sure-pop on game," she said one day. "Doggone it, I'd want 'o miss 'em once in a while just fer to be aigged on fer to try again. First you know, you'll be obliged fer to shoot standin' on your haid like these yere champin' shooters that go 'round the kentry givin' shows, you shorely will, Mose."

  Mose only laughed. "I want to be just as good a shot as anybody," he said, turning to Pratt.

  "You'll be it ef you don't wear out your gun a-doin' of it," replied the boss.

  These were splendid days. Each sundown they camped nearer to the land of the buffalo, and when the work was done and the supper eaten, Mose took his pipe and his gun and walked away to some ridge, there to sit while the yellow light faded out of the sky. He was as happy as one of his restless nature could properly hope to be, but sometimes when he thought of Mary his heart ached a little; he forgot her only when his imagination set wing into the sunset sky.

  One other thing troubled him a little. Rude, plain Jennie was in love with him. Daily intercourse with a youngster half as attractive as Mose would have had the same effect upon her, for she was at that age whe
n propinquity makes sentiment inevitable. She could scarcely keep her eyes from him during hours in camp, and on the drive she rode with him four times as long as he wished for. She bothered him, and yet she was so good and generous he could not rebuff her; he could only endure.

  She had one accomplishment: she could ride like a Sioux, either astride or womanwise, with a saddle or without, and many a race they had as the roads grew firm and dry. She was scrawny and flat-chested, but agile as a boy when occasion demanded. She was fearless, too, of man or beast, and once when her father became crazy with liquor (which was his weakness) she went with Mose to bring him from a saloon, where he stood boasting of his powers as a fighter with the bowie knife.

  As they entered Jennie walked straight up to him: "Dad, you come home. Come right out o' yere."

  He looked at her for a moment until his benumbed brain took in her words and all their meaning; then he said: "All right, Jinnie, just wait a second till I have another horn with these yer gents——"

  "Horn nawthin," she said in reply, and seized him by the arm. "You come along."

  He submitted without a struggle, and on the way out grew plaintive. "Jinnie, gal," he kept saying, "I'm liable to get dry before mornin', I shore am; ef you'd only jest let me had one more gill——"

  "Oh, shet up, Dad. Ef you git dry I'll bring the hull crick in fer ye to drink," was her scornful reply.

  After he was safe in bed Jennie came over to the wagon where Mose was smoking.

  "Men are the blamedest fools," she began abruptly; "'pears like they ain't got the sense of a grayback louse, leastways some of 'em. Now, there's dad, filled up on stuff they call whisky out yer, and consequence is he can't eat any grub for two days or more. Doggone it, it makes me huffy, it plum does. Mam has put up with it fer twenty years, which is just twenty more than I'd stand it, and don't you forget it. When I marry a man it will be a man with sense 'nough not to pizen hisself on rot-gut whisky."

  Without waiting for a reply she turned away and went to bed in the bottom of the hinder wagon. Mose smoked his pipe out and rolled himself in his blanket near the smoldering camp fire.