The Eagle's Heart Page 7

  CHAPTER VII

  ON THE WING

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

  Roseville had only one street, and it was not difficult to learn thatPratt had not yet appeared upon the scene. It was essentially a prairievillage; no tree broke the smooth horizon line. A great many emigrantswere in motion, and their white-topped wagons suggested the sails ofminute craft on the broad ocean as they came slowly up the curve to theEast and fell away down the slope to the West. To all of these Haroldapplied during the days that followed, but received no offer whichseemed to promise so well as that of Mr. Pratt, so he waited. At lasthe came, a tall, sandy-bearded fellow, who walked beside a four-horseteam drawing two covered wagons tandem. Behind him straggled a bunch ofbony cattle and some horses, herded by a girl and a small boy. The girlrode 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 'emalong 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 toterms. We ain't got any money to throw away, but we'll do the best wekin."

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

  "Well, I reckon you won't," said the girl, throwing back her sunbonnetas 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 tothe lashes of her eyes, but her teeth were very white, and her lips avivid pink. She had her father's humorous smile, and though her wordswere bluff, her eyes betrayed that she liked Harold at once.

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

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

  "Why don't _you_ ride 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 toget down to a money basis. Them young uns claim all my stawk."

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

  As Harold was helping to unhitch the team the girl came around andstudied 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' themhands."

  "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 runaway."

  "Come, gal, get that coffee bilin'," called the mother. Mrs. Pratt was awizened little woman, so humped by labor and chills and fever that sheseemed deformed. Her querulousness was not so much ill-natured asplaintive.

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

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

  Harold was naturally handy at camping, and his ready and skillful handsbecame 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 breakmy horse if you want to."

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

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

  A bystander once said: "Why don't you climb onto him and stay with himtill 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 hisfriend," said Harold.

  In the end "Jack," as Harold called the roan, walked up to his masterand rubbed his nose against his shoulder. Harold then stripped away thebridle 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 coltworked under the saddle like an old horse. Thereafter it was a matterof 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 walkand a sort of running trot--that is, he trotted behind and rose in frontwith a wolflike action of the fore feet. He was guided by the touch ofthe rein on the neck or by the pressure of his rider's knee on hisshoulder.

  He was taught to stand without hitching and to allow his rider to mounton either side. This was a trick which Harold learned of a man who hadbeen with the Indians. "You see," he said, "an Injun can't afford tohave a horse that will only let him climb on from the nigh side, he hasto 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 theopen prairie and the feed became better the horses and cattle were lesseasy to drive. Each day the interest grew. The land became wilder andthe sky brighter. The grass came on swiftly, and crocuses and dandelionsbroke from the sod on the sunny side of smooth hills. The cranes, withtheir splendid challenging cries, swept in wide circles through the sky.Ducks and geese moved by in myriads, straight on, delaying not. Foxesbarked on the hills at sunset, and the splendid chorus of the prairiechickens 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 whenhe was obliged to rise stiff and sore to find the cattle strayed awayand everything wet and grimy. But the sunshine soon warmed his back anddried up the mud under his feet. Each day the way grew drier and theflowers more abundant. Each day signs of the wild life thickened.Antlers of elk, horns of the buffalo, crates of bones set around shallowwater holes, and especially the ever-thickening game trails furrowingthe hills filled the boy's heart with delight. This was the kind of lifehe wished to see. They were now beyond towns, and only occasionallysmall settlements relieved the houseless rolling plains. Soon theMissouri, that storied and muddy old stream, would offer itself to view.

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

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

  "It ain't natural fer to be so durned sure-pop on game," she said oneday. "Doggone it, I'd want 'o miss 'em once in a while just fer to beaigged on fer to try again. First you know, you'll be obliged fer toshoot 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," hesaid, turning to Pratt.

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

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

  One other thing troubled him a little. Rude, plain Jennie was in lovewith him. Daily intercourse with a youngster half as attractive as Mosewould have had the same effect upon her, for she was at that age whenpropinquity makes sentiment inevitable. She could scarcely keep her eyesfrom him during hours in camp, and on the drive she rode with him fourtimes as long as he wished for. She bothered him, and yet she was sogood and generous he could not rebuff her; he could only endure.

  She had one accomplishment: she could ride like a Sioux, either astrideor womanwise, with a saddle or without, and many a race they had as theroads grew firm and dry. She was scrawny and flat-chested, but agile asa boy when occasion demanded. She was fearless, too, of man or beast,and once when her father became crazy with liquor (which was hisweakness) she went with Mose to bring him from a saloon, where he stoodboasting 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 wordsand all their meaning; then he said: "All right, Jinnie, just wait asecond till I have another horn with these yer gents----"

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

  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', Ishore 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 todrink," was her scornful reply.

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

  "Men are the blamedest fools," she began abruptly; "'pears like theyain'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, andconsequence 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 twentyyears, which is just twenty more than I'd stand it, and don't you forgetit. When I marry a man it will be a man with sense 'nough not to pizenhisself on rot-gut whisky."

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

  Pratt was feeble and very long faced and repentant at breakfast. Hisappetite was gone. Mrs. Pratt said nothing, but pressed him to eat."Come, Paw, a gill or two o' cawfee will do ye good," she said. "Cawfeeis a great heatoner," she said to Mose. "When I'm so misorified of amoarnin' I can't eat a mossel o' bacon or pork, I kin take a gill o'cawfee an' it shore helps me much."

  Pratt looked around sheepishly. "I do reckon I made a plum ejot ofmyself last night."

  "As ush'll," snapped Jennie. "You wanted to go slicin' every man insight up, just fer to show you could swing a bowie knife when you was onairth the first time."

  "Now that's the quare thing, Mose; a peacebbler man than me don't live;Jinnie says I couldn't lick a hearty bedbug, but when I git red liquorinto my insides I'm a terror to near neighbours, so they say. I can'twell remember just what do take place 'long towards the fo'th drink."

  "Durn lucky you can't. You'd never hole up your head again. A plummerfool you never see," said Jennie, determined to drive his shame home tohim.

  Pratt sighed, understood perfectly the meaning of all this vituperation."Well, Mam, we'll try again. I think I'm doin' pretty good when I go twomunce, don't you?"

  "It's more'n that, Paw," said Mrs. Pratt, eager to encourage him at theright moment. "It's sixty-four days. You gained four days on it thistime."

  Pratt straightened up and smiled. "That so, Mam? Wal, that shorely is abig gain."

  He took Mose aside after breakfast and solemnly said:

  "Wimern-folk is a heap better'n men-folks. Now, me or you couldn't standin wimern-folks what they put up with in men-folks. 'Pears like they airfiner built, someway." After a pause he said with great earnestness:"Don't you drink red liquor, Mose; it shore makes a man no account."

  "Don't you worry, Cap. I'm not drinkin' liquor of any color."