CHAPTER VIII

CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS

Cowboys were seldom respecters of the feelings of their fellows. Few topics were so sacred or incidents so grave they were not made the subject of the rawest jests. Leading a life of such stirring adventure that few days pa.s.sed without some more or less serious mishap, reckless of life, unheedful alike of time and eternity, they made the smallest trifles and the biggest tragedies the subjects of chaff and badinage till the next diverting occurrence. But to the Cross Canon outfit Mat Barlow's love for Netty Nevins was so obviously a downright worship, an all-absorbing, dominating cult, that, in a way, and all unknown to her, she became the nearest thing to a religion the Cross Canonites ever had.

Eight years before Mat had come among them a green tenderfoot from a South Missouri village, picked up in Durango by Tom McTigh, the foreman, on a glint of the eye and set of the jaw that suggested workable material. Nor was McTigh mistaken. Mat took to range work like a duck to water. Within a year he could rope and tie a mossback with the best, and in sc.r.a.ps with Mancos Jim's Pah-Ute horse raiders had proved himself as careless a dare-devil as the oldest and toughest trigger-twitcher of the lot.

But persuade and cajole as much as they liked, none of the outfit were ever able to induce Mat to pursue his education as a cowboy beyond the details incident to work and frolic on the open range. Old past-masters in the cla.s.sics of cowboy town deportment, expert light shooters, monte players, dance-hall beaux, elbow-crookers, and red-eye riot-starters labored faithfully with Mat, but, all to no purpose. To town with them he went, but with them in their debauches he never joined; indeed as a rule he even refused to discuss such incidents with them academically. Thus he delicately but plainly made it known to the outfit that he proposed to keep his mind as clean as his conduct.

Such a curiosity as Mat was naturally closely studied. The combined intelligence of the outfit was trained upon him, for some time without result. He was the knottiest puzzle that ever hit Cross Canon. At first he was suspected of religious scruples and nicknamed "Circuit Rider." But presently it became apparent that he owned ability and will to curse a fighting outlaw bronco till the burning desert air felt chill, and it became plain he feared G.o.d as little as man. Mat had joined the outfit in the Autumn, when for several weeks it was on the jump; first gathering and shipping beeves, then branding calves, lastly moving the herd down to its Winter range on the San Juan. Throughout this period Cross Canon's puzzle remained hopeless; but the very first evening after the outfit went into Winter quarters at the home ranch, the puzzle was solved.

Ranch mails were always small, no matter how infrequent their coming or how large the outfit. The owner's business involved little correspondence, the boys' sentiments inspired less. Few with close home-ties exiled themselves on the range. Many were "on the scout"

from the scene of some remote shooting sc.r.a.pe and known by no other than a nickname. For most of them such was the rarity of letters that often have I seen a cowboy turning and studying an unopened envelope for a half-day or more, wondering whoever it was from and guessing whatever its contents could be. Thus it was one of the great sensations of the season for McTigh and his red-sashers, when the ranch cook produced five letters for Circuit Rider, all addressed in the same neat feminine hand, all bearing the same post mark. And when, while the rest were washing for supper, disposing of war sacks, or "making down" blankets, Mat squatted in the chimney corner to read his letters, Lee Skeats impressively whispered to Priest:

"Ben, I jest nachally hope never to c.o.c.k another gun ef that thar little ol' Circuit hain't got a gal that's stuck to him tighter'n a tick makin' a gotch ear, or that ain't got airy d.a.m.n thing to do to hum but write letters. Size o' them five he's got must 'a kept her settin'

up nights to make 'em ever since Circuit jumped the hum reservation.

Did you _ever_ hear of a feller gettin' five letters from a gal to wonst?"

"I sh.o.r.e never did," answered Ben; "Circuit must 'a been 'prentice to some big Medicine Man back among his tribe and have a bagful o' hoodoos hid out somewhere. He ain't so d.a.m.n hijus to look at, but he sh.o.r.e never knocked no gal plum loco that away with his p'rsn'l beauty. Must be some sort o' Injun medicine he works."

"Ca'n't be from his mother," cogitated Lee. "Writin' ain't trembly none--looks like it was writ by a school-marm, an' a lally-cooler at that. Circuit will have to git one o' them pianer-like writin' makers and keep poundin' it on the back till it hollers, ef he allows to lope close up in that gal's writin' cla.s.s.

"Lord! but won't thar be fun for us all Winter he'pin' him 'tend to his correspondence!

"Let's you an' me slip round and tip off the outfit to shet up till after supper, an' then all be ready with a hot line o' useful hints 'bout his answerin' her."

Ben joyously fell in with Lee's plan. The tips were quickly pa.s.sed round. But none of the hints were ever given, not a single one. A facer lay ahead of them beside which the mere receipt of the five letters was nothing. To be sure, the letters were the greatest sensation the outfit had enjoyed since they stood off successfully two troops of U. S. Cavalry, come to arrest them for killing twenty maurauding Utes. But what soon followed filled them with an astonishment that stilled their mischievous tongues, stirred sentiments long dormant, and ultimately, in a measure, tuned their own heart-strings into chord with the sweet melody ringing over Circuit's own.

Supper was called, and upon it the outfit fell--all but Circuit. They attacked it wolf-fashion according to their habit, bolting the steaming food in a silence absolute but for the crunching of jaws and the shrill hiss of sipped coffee. The meal was half over before Circuit, the last letter finished, tucked his five treasures inside his shirt, stepped over the bench to a vacant place at the table, and hastily swallowed a light meal; in fact he rose while the rest were still busy gorging themselves. And before Lee or the others were ready to launch at Circuit any shafts of their rude wit, his manoeuvres struck them dumb with curiosity.

Having hurried from the table direct to his bunk, Circuit was observed delving in the depths of his war sack, out of which he produced a set of clean under-clothing, complete from shirt to socks, and a razor.

Besides these he carefully laid out his best suit of store clothes, and from beneath the "heading" of the bunk he pulled a new pair of boots.

All this was done with a rapidity and method that evinced some set purpose which the outfit could not fathom, a purpose become the more puzzling when, five minutes later, Circuit returned from the kitchen bearing the cook's wash-tub and a pail of warm water. The tub he deposited and filled in an obscure corner of the bunkroom, and shortly thereafter was stripped to the buff, laboriously bathing himself. The bath finished, Circuit carefully shaved, combed his hair, and dressed himself in his cleanest and best.

While he was dressing, Bill Ball caught breath enough to whisper to Lee: "By cripes! I've got it. Circuit's got a hunch some feller's tryin' to rope an' hobble his gal, an' he's goin' to ask Tom for his time, fork a cayuse, an' hit a lope for a railroad that'll take him to whatever little ol' humanyville his gal lives at."

"Lope h.e.l.l," answered Lee; "it's a run he's goin' to hit, with one spur in the shoulder an' th' other in th' flank. Why, th' way he's throwin'

that whisker-cutter at his face, he's plumb sh.o.r.e to dewlap and wattle his fool self till you could spot him in airy herd o' humans as fer as you could see him."

But Bill's guess proved wide of the mark.

As soon as Circuit's dressing was finished and he had received a.s.surance from the angular fragment of mirror nailed above the wash-basin that his hair was smoothly combed and a new neckerchief neatly knotted, he produced paper and an envelope from his war sack, seated himself at the end of the long dinner-table, farthest from the fireplace, lighted a fresh candle, spread out his five treasures, carefully sharpened a stub pencil, and duly set its lead end a-soak in his mouth, preparatory to the composition of a letter. The surprise was complete. Such painstaking preparation and elaborate costuming for the mere writing of a letter none present--or absent, for that matter--had ever heard of. But it was all so obviously eloquent of a most tender respect for his correspondent that boisterous voices were hushed, and for at least a quarter of an hour the Cross Canonites sat covertly watching the puckered brows, drawn mouth, and awkwardly crawling pencil of the writer.

Presently Lee gently nudged Ball and pa.s.sed a wink to the rest; then all rose and softly tiptoed their way to the kitchen.

Comfortably squatted on his heels before the cook's fireplace, Lee quietly observed: "Fellers, I allow it's up to us to hold a inquest on th' remains o' my idee about stringin' Circuit over that thar gal o'

his'n. I moves that th' idee's done died a-bornin', an' that we bury her. All that agrees, say so; any agin it, say so, 'n' then git their guns an' come outside."

There were no dissenting votes. Lee's motion was unanimously carried.

"Lee's plumb right," whispered McTigh; "that kid's got it harder an'

worse than airy feller I ever heerd tell of, too hard for us to lite in stringin' him 'bout it. Never had no gal myself; leastways, no good one; been allus like a old buffalo bull whipped out o' th' herd, sorta flockin' by my lonesome, an'--an'--" with a husky catch of the voice, "an' that thar kid 'minds me I must a' been missin' a _h.e.l.l_ of a lot hit 'pears to me I wouldn't have no great trouble gittin' to like."

Then for a time there was silence in the kitchen.

Crouching over his pots, the black cook stared in surprised inquiry at the semicircle of grim bronzed faces, now dimly lit by the flickering embers and then for a moment sharply outlined by the flash of a cigarette deeply inhaled by nervous lips. The situation was tense. In each man emotions long dormant, or perhaps by some never before experienced, were tumultuously surging; surging the more tumultuously for their long dormancy or first recognition. Presently in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice that scarcely carried round the semicircle, Chillili Jim spoke:

"Fellers, Circuit sh.o.r.e 'minds me pow'ful strong o' my ol' mammy. She was monstrous lovin' to we-uns; an' th' way she scrubbed an' fixed up my ol' pa when he comes home from the break-up o' Terry's Rangers, with his ol' carca.s.s 'bout as full o' rents an' holes as his ragged gray war clothes! Allus have tho't ef I could git to find a gal stuck on me like mammy on pa, I'd drop my rope on her, throw her into th' home ranch pasture, an' nail up th' gate fer keeps."

"'Minds me o' goin' to meetin' when I was a six-year-old," mused Mancos Mitch; "when Circuit's pencil got to smokin' over th' paper an' we-uns got so dedburned still, 'peared to me like I was back in th' little ol'

meetin'-house in th' mosquito clearin', on th' banks o' th' Lee in ol'

Uvalde County. Th' air got that quar sort o' dead smell 'ligion allus 'pears to give to meetin'-houses, a' I could hear th' ol' pa'son a-tellin' us how it's th' lovinest that allus gits th' longest end o'

th' rope o' life. Hits me now that ther ol' sky scout was 'bout right.

Feller cain't possibly keep busy _all_ th' love in his system, workin'

it off on nothing but a pet hoss or gun; thar's allus a h.e.l.l of a lot you didn't know you had comes oozin' out when a proper piece o' calico lets you next."

"Boys," cut in Bill Ball, the dean of the outfit's shooters-up of town and shooters-out of dance-hall lights; "boys, I allow it 's up to me to 'pologize to Circuit. Ef I wasn't such a d.a.m.ned o'nery kiyote I'd o'

caught on befo'. But I hain't been runnin' with th' drags o' th' she herd so long that I can't 'preciate th' feelin's o' a feller that's got a good gal stuck on him, like Circuit. Ef I had one, you-all kin gamble yer _alce_ all bets would be off with them painted dance-hall beer jerkers, an' it would be out in th' brush fo' me while th' corks was poppin', gals cussin', red-eye flowin', an' chips rattlin'. That thar little ol' kid has my 'spects, an' ef airy o' th' Blue Mountain outfit tries to string him 'bout not runnin' with them oreide propositions, I'll hand 'em lead till my belt's empty."

Ensued a long silence; at length, by common consent the inquest was adjourned, and the members of the jury returned to the bunk-room, quiet and solemn as men entering a death chamber. There at the table before the guttering candle still sat Circuit, his hair now badly tousled, his upper lip blackened with pencil lead, his brows more deeply puckered, his entire underlip apparently swallowed, the table littered with rudely scrawled sheets.

Slipping softly to their respective bunks, the boys peeled and climbed into their blankets. And there they all lay, wide-awake but silent, for an hour or two, some watching Circuit curiously, some enviously, others staring fixedly into the dying fire until from its dull-glowing embers there rose for some visions of bare-footed, nut-brown, fustian-clad maids, and for others the finer lines of silk and lace draped figures, now long since pa.s.sed forever out of their lives.

Those longest awake were privileged to witness Circuit's final offering at the shrine of his love.

His letter finished, enclosed, addressed, and stamped, he kissed it and laid it aside, apparently all unconscious of the presence of his mates, as he had been since beginning his letter. Then he drew from beneath his shirt something none of them had seen before, a buckskin bag, out of which he pulled a fat blank memorandum book, _into which he proceeded to copy, in as small a hand as he could write, every line of his sweetheart's letters_. Later they learned that this bag and its contents never left Circuit's body, nestled always over his heart, suspended by a buckskin thong!

Out of the close intimacies cow-camp life promotes, it was not long before the well-nigh overmastering curiosity of the outfit was satisfied. They learned how the "little ol' blue-eyed sorrel top," as Bill Ball had christened her, had vowed to wait faithfully till Circuit could earn and save enough to make them a home, and how Circuit had sworn to look into no woman's eyes till he could again look into hers.

Before many months had pa.s.sed, Circuit's regular weekly letter to Netty--regular when on the ranch--and the ceremonial purification and personal decking that preceded it, had become for the Cross Canon outfit a public ceremony all studiously observed. None were ever too tired, none too grumpy, to wash, shave, and "slick up" of letter nights, scrupulously as Moslems bathe their feet before approaching the shrine of Mahomet and still as Moslems before their shrine all sat about the bunk-room while Circuit wrote his letter and copied Netty's last. Indeed, more than one well-started wild town orgy was stopped short by one of the boys remarking: "Cut it, you kiyotes! Netty wouldn't like it!"

And thus the months rolled on till they stacked up into years, but the interchange of letters never ceased and the burden of Circuit's buckskin bag grew heavier.

Twice Circuit ventured a financial _coup_, and both times lost--invested his savings in horses, losing one band to Arizona rustlers, and the other to Mancos Jim's Pah-Utes. After the last experience he took no further chances and settled down to the slow but sure plan of h.o.a.rding his wages.

Come the Fall of the eighth year of his exile from Netty, Circuit had acc.u.mulated two thousand dollars, and it was unanimously voted by the Cross Canon outfit, gathered in solemn conclave at Circuit's request, that he might venture to return to claim her. And before the conclave was adjourned, Lee Skeats, the chairman, remarked: "Circuit, ef Netty shows airy sign o' balkin' at th' size o' your bank roll, you kin jes'

tell her that thar 's a bunch out here in Cross Canon that's been lovin' her sort o' by proxy, that'll chip into your matrimonial play, plumb double the size o' your stack, jest fo' th' hono' o' meetin' up wi' her an' th' pleasure o' seein' their pardner hitched."

The season's work done and the herd turned loose on its Winter range on the San Juan, the outfit decided to escort Circuit into Mancos and there celebrate his coming nuptials. For them the one hundred and seventy intervening miles of alternating canon and mesa, much of the journey over trails deadly dangerous for any creature less sure-footed than a goat, was no more than a pleasant _pasear_. Thus it was barely high noon of the third day when the thirty Cross Canonites reached their destination.

Deep down in a mighty gorge, nestled beside the stream that gave its name alike to canon and to town, Mancos stewed contentedly in a temperature that would try the strength and temper of any unaccustomed to the climate of southwestern Colorado. Framed in Franciscan-gray sage brush, itself gray as the sage with the dust of pounding hoofs and rushing whirlwinds, at a little distance Mancos looked like an aggregation of dead ash heaps, save where, here and there, dabs of faded paint lent a semblance of patches of dying embers.

While raw, uninviting, and even melancholy in its every aspect, for the scattered denizens of a vast region round about Mancos's princ.i.p.al street was the local Great White Way that furnished all the fun and frolic most of them ever knew. To it flocked miners from their dusky, pine-clad gorges in the north, grangers from the then new farming settlement in the Montezuma Valley, cowboys from Blue Mountain, the Dolores, and the San Juan; Navajos from Chillili, Utes from their reservation--a motley lot burning with untamed elemental pa.s.sions that called for pleasure "straight."

Joyously descending upon the town at a breakneck lope before a following high wind that completely shrouded them in clouds of dust, it was not until they pulled up before their favorite feed corral that the outfit learned that Mancos was revelling in quite the reddest red-letter day of its existence, the day of its first visitation by a circus--and also its last for many a year thereafter.

In the eighties Mancos was forty miles from the nearest railway, but news of the reckless extravagances of its visiting miners and cowboys tempted Fells Brothers' "Greatest Aggregation on Earth of Ring Artists and Monsters" to visit it. Dusted and costumed outside of town, down the main street of Mancos the circus bravely paraded that morning, its red enamelled paint and gilt, its many-tinted tights and spangles, making a perfect riot of brilliant colors over the prevailing dull gray of valley and town.

Streets, stores, saloons, and dance halls were swarming with the outpouring of the ranches and the mines, men who drank abundantly but in the main a rollicking, good-natured lot.