THE EMANCIPATION OF JADY. 



263 



"The Penobscot" — every man Jack at the 

 cow camp called the Yankee Penobscot — ■ 

 "is queer, but he faces the music and never 

 smokes them damn'd cigarettes about the 

 ricks or stables, or cusses, or beats a hoss. 

 Jennie is no longer young," and she had 

 been kind and faithful when the world had 

 not wagged so well as now; when debt 

 had hung heavy and had soured the best 

 years of his hard, lonely life while await- 

 ing the completion of the canal that was 

 to water and make valuable his lands. Mol- 

 lie's folks had neighbored there, but, 

 grown weary and disheartened with wait- 

 ing, they had drifted first to the town and 

 then to the bad. Where might Mollie drift 

 if he sent her away! Drift! How some 

 things refuse to be forgotten! 



I know not where his islands lie 



Or where his fronded palmins and shade are ; 

 But I do know that I can not drift 



Beyond his love and care. 



The school girl Mollie of his youth, 

 who'd said the lines to him, had long since 

 passed away, and he was a bachelor ranch- 

 man at 60. 



"Stringer reckoned I'd best come in and 

 ask what you'd have done with Jady 

 whenst I bring him down." 



Spud was one of the boys that wait at 

 the cow camps through the long winters 

 for the spring roundups to begin. "Riding 

 grub line," he called it; braiding rawhide 

 ropes, hair cinches and hackamores. The 

 scuff of Spud's chaps and the clank of 

 spurs had broken the thread of Lucky's 

 retrospection. The 2 men went out to look 

 at the horses. Later, when Spud was un- 

 saddling at the cow camp, he said to the 

 foreman, 



"String, old boy, I'm giving you the 

 line-backed truth. The old man says to 

 put the little gray with the brood mares 

 and see that he has the same ration and 

 shelter in bad weather. And be good 

 enough to tell M-i-s-t-e-r Stringer he's not 

 to be used. 



"I thought," continued Spud, "that 

 Lucky was pickin' a load into me first; 

 but when he told me he roped on that 

 hoss before he owned a brandin 1 * iron and 

 that a hoss that was good enough to pack 

 him on the Goose Creek stampede was 



too good to haul stuff with, I seen he 



was serious." 



The curiosity of the punchers was not 

 a whit lessened the next day when String- 

 er all mysteriously hooked up a buck- 

 board and brought Doc Helmer to the 

 Mule Shoe. 



Helmer was eking out existence on a 

 dry ranch a few miles back in the hills, 

 and here, as I recall it, is the story that 

 worthy told me, months afterward, as he 

 drove me toward the railroad one October 



night, behind one of Lucky Smith's teams 

 that carried me to and from the Mule 

 Shoe for my annual bit of duck shooting. 

 "There's been plenty and more of rank 

 guessing going on since Lucky went to 

 the States last spring, and some of these 

 dug-out ranchers along here begin to real- 

 ize they lost a good friend that day. 



"Cuss! Well nobody knows better than 

 I how hot tempered and explosive he was, 

 or how unreasonable he could sometimes 

 be when things got crossed; and there 

 ain't er'y man holds the edge on me say- 

 in' how, when it was all over, he could 

 be depended on to halve his last side of 

 bacon or his last 50 of flour with a neigh- 

 bor. 



"Look at me representing a red buck- 

 board and gettin' half of the net stuff off 

 of the best hay ranch on this old river! 

 Last February wasn't I holdin' down old 

 Satchel Belly's place and cookin' my own 

 chuck? Lucky sends Stringer up* after 

 me and when I saw these old sorrels 

 comin' my way that day I just wanted to 

 die. I says to myself, 'Your old pard 

 Smithy, he's goin' to call you for your last 

 chip. Your note's 4 years past due and 

 you can't cut the mustard.' 



"Couldn't get a blame thing out of old 

 Stringer. Lucky just wanted to see me if 

 it wouldn't be too much trouble. 



"When I got to the ranch I saw in a jiff 

 1 was off my base about the note. Some- 

 thing big had hit the old man. I could 

 see it in his eyes. He kep' me a-guessin' 

 till after dinner. 



' 'Doc, old man,' says he, T guess I've 

 turned the corner.' • 



"Then he flashed up a letter and went 

 on to tell how he'd had hell there the Sat- 

 urday before and come within a throw of 

 shuttin' up the whole shootin' match to 

 let his creditors do the worryin' for a 

 spell; and how he went down to the mail 

 box just to walk and cool off after cussin' 

 everything to a standstill. And there was 

 a letter with an offer of — I ain't to tell 

 how much — for a half interest in his Black 

 Butte claims, that he went broke tryin' to 

 improve in the 70's. The last place I ever 

 expected to pan a splitter out of! 



" 'Doc,' says he, 'if you'll stay here and 

 look after the ranch I'll go up and make 

 the deal. If it's a go, you're next to run 

 the granger end of this ranch if you want 

 the job.' 



"At the end of 2 weeks he was back 

 and he sure had the stuff, and the way he 

 loosened it up for a while made some of 

 your neighbors, who'd been tightenin' the 

 strings on the Mule Shoe property for 

 years, jump sideways. When he told Jen- 

 nie she could go back to her old Ver- 

 mont home and take Mollie along and 



