For the next fifteen minutes both were too busy to talk. Then, bacon and biscuit having been washed down with three cups of coffee apiece, they rolled smokes and prepared to take it easy for a while.
`Gosh, this suits me,' Larry said, as a delicate ring of smoke issued from his lips. `Damn punchin' cows, I say.'
`Then yu ain't so keen on that foreman's job?' asked his friend, slyly.
The boy laughed. `That's shore one to yu; first town we hit the drink is on me. We don't seem to be gettin' none nearer that foreman's job, do we?'
`Yo're shoutin',' Green agreed. 'Talkin' o' towns, where's the nearest railway point from here?'
`Big Rock is 'bout a hundred mile east, but the actual nearest is Jonesville, south, but yu gotta cross the desert.'
`Thank yu most to death, but that's the way I come.' `What we want with a town?'
`We don't want one; I do,' Green corrected him. `I gotta get a postage stamp.'
Larry looked at him; the older man's face was perfectly serious, but the boy suspected he was being joshed.
`We go together,' he said decidedly. `I'm stickin' to yu like a wart on yore skin.'
`Wart? Yu? Yo're a blister. Well, I s'pose I gotna put up with yu. As the psalmist says, 'These things is sent to try us,' an' by Gosh, they do.'
Larry had no answer to this and having gained his point was willing to let it go. The camp having been cleared up, they got their horses and set out for Big Rock.
`Come to think of it, this ain't a bad move,' Larry remarked presently. `It there's a posse on our trail they'll 'a' got tired o' lookin' for us time we get back, an' mebbe think we've flew the coop.'
`I was wonderin' how long it would nake yu to see that,' Green smiled. `Well, well, never yu mind; yo're young yet an' wisdom comes with years, they say.'
`Huh, somethin' has done gone wrong with the system in yore case, Methusalem,' retorted Larry, furnively jabbing his spurred heel into the flank of his friend's horse, a proceeding which caused the outraged animal to stand straight up in the air. Green, totally unprepared for such a manoeuvre, was flung backwards and nearly unseated, only saving himself by a quick clutch at the horn of the saddle. Larry gave a whoop of delight. `Yah!' he cried. `Big Chief Cat o' the Mountains, tamer of wild ones, pulls leather. Gee, Don, I thought yu could ride.'
Green was too busy to reply at the moment, but when he had restored Bullet to a proper frame of mind, and recovered the hat which had fallen off at the first jar, he told the practical joker what he thought of him.
`Yu oughta be in a home,' he said witheringly. `Not one for the half-witted--yu couldn't qualify even for that. Don't yu know yu might 'a' busted my neck, yu pie-faced idjut, makin' a play like that?'
`These things is sent to try us,' the boy quoted. `Here's a level stretch; I'll race yu to the big tree for a dollar.'
'Yu go to blazes. My hoss is all flustered up through yore foolishness an' yu want to race. Yu gotta nerve.'
`I gotta hoss too,' with a disparaging glance at Bullet. `Why don't yu use him?' came the instant retort.
Whereupon Larry surrendered gracefully, gave the Indian peace sign, and they proceeded amiably on their journey.
Big Rock, which they reached that night, had only one feature to distinguish it from any other frontier settlement, and that was the freak of Nature from which it derived its name. Thrusting up from the plain which stretched flatly for many miles on all sides of it was a great chunk of rock, bare, grey, and practically unclimbable. How it came to be there was a mystery even scientists had failed to solve; as for the inhabitants of the sordid settlement which straggled about its base, they had other things to think of. The town came to life when the railroad, hoping for cattle shipments from the big ranches, ran a branch line to the famous landmark.
Like most of the places which depended upon the cow industry, existence there was spasmodic. After the round-ups, when the herds were driven in, the place seethed with excinement, and sleep was the last thing to be thought of. The cowboys, after a long spell of deprivation and hard work, had money to spend and appetites to satisfy, and Big Rock saw that they were not disappointed. Then would follow a period of inanition, broken only by the occasional advent of a range-rider, bent on a little personal spree.
The round-ups had not yet taken place and the town was passing through one of the comatose periods when Green and Larry arrived. Skirting the station and its empty cattle-pens, they came to a pretentious two-storey board edifice which announced itself as the `Rock Saloon and Dance Hall,' and towered in shabby majesty above the squat log and adobe shacks which represented most of the other buildings. The visitors attached their mounts to the hitch-rail outside and walked in.
It was a largish room, and in the light of the oil lamps swung from the ceiling made some attempt at garish adornment. Tarnished gilt mirrors and flaming chromos punctuated the walls, and a goodly array of bottles occupied the shelves at the back of the bar, which filled the side of the room facing the door. Tables, chairs, and cuspidors were dotted about, and on the left was another opening which led to nhe dance hall. Three men were lounging at the bar talking to the fellow in charge, a heavy-jowled, red-nosed man who regarded the newcomers with a suspicious scowl.
`What yu want?' he asked truculently.
`Civility first,' Green snapped oack. `Then a drink, a meal, and a bed a-piece.'
The barkeeper looked into the slitted, boring eyes of the stranger and his own stare wavered; when he spoke again his voice had lost its edge.
`There's a restyrong down the street--we don't do meals--an' our beds is all took,' he growled, pushing forward a bottle and glasses.
They poured their drinks, and then Green said, `Gimme a sheet o' paper an' envelope.'
The bartender hesitated. `Ain't--' he began, and stopped; there was something about this customer he did not like. Ordinarily he got away with his bullying but he had an uneasy impression that this time he had picked the wrong man. He fumbled in a drawer and produced the articles asked for. The cowpuncher took them and, retiring to a table, wrote his letter and sealed it. Larry remained at the bar, coolly returning the gaze of the other three customers. He decided that if they were a fair sample of the town's inhabitants, it was a good place to keep awake in. Seeing that the letter was finished, the barkeeper, his curiosity overcoming his dislike, asked, `Want that mailed, Mister?'
`Nope,' replied the puncher, with a smile that told the dispenser of refreshment that his little ruse was seen through.
When they had departed the bartender looked at his friends. `Suthin' funny 'bout that jigger,' he remarked. `Fancy I've seen him afore somewheres.'
`He certainly has got a chilly eye,' said one. `Me, I'd sooner monkey with a buzz-saw.'
`Allasame, they'll bear watchin',' said another, a little weedy chap, with an evil glint. `I'm agoin' to trail 'em a few.'
He slipped out of the saloon and saw his quarry heading for the station-agent's, which was also the post office. He waited while they despatched their letter and then watched them enter the eating-house which the bartender had complimented with a quite unwarranted title. From there they went to the general store to supplement their supplies, for, as Green poinned out, they might have to keep clear of towns for quite a while. As they entered, another customer left, carrying a couple of vividly-labelled bottles. The proprietor of the store was enjoying a private joke.
'Dang me, if it don't beat the band,' he said. `Say, what would yu guess was in them two bottles that feller was totin' out so careful?'
`Special brand o' nose-paint,' guessed Larry.
'No, sir, but yu ain't so far out after all, he, he,' tittered the storekeeper. `It's head-paint--yes, black hair- dye--feller's goin' grey, I s'pose, an' I have to get that from Noo York for him, got a reg'lar order. No, I ain't never seen him, that's his man, comes in to fetch it. Ain't it a odd number, eh? Talk about women bein' the vain ones.'
They agreed that it certainly was singular in a country where personal appearance was not much studied. Green endeavoured, by artful questioning, to find out something more about the victim of vanity, but the storekeeper knew no more. When they had done their business and were in the street again, Larry said: `Funny idea, feller dyeing his hair out here.'
