George Pattullo

“ Then he married, and now he talked like this: "I swan, Dan, when I think of what I married Hetty on, it sure makes me shake like a leaf. It's a wonder we didn't starve. A man's pluckier or he don't think of these things when he's younger—don't you reckon? I'd never dare do it over again now."
"Pluckier? No. Simply irresponsible—that's all. A lot of 'em hope for a miracle—these young people," said I.
"And damn my eyes if they don't usually get it," Lafe said. "It's most amazing how things will turn up to help people who can't help themselves—just when you think you're done for, too." ”

“ Now, Lafe had forgotten Hetty in all this. Had Mrs. MacFarlane been a wiser woman, she might have read a different story from his eyes in that instant.
"It's my duty to tell her, Mr. Johnson," Mrs. MacFarlane went on, sustained by that sense of moral obligation which overtakes us all in dealing with our friends' private affairs.
"It ain't right, ma'am," said Lafe. "It ain't proper that a girl should hear such things."
"Ho, indeed!" the widow sniffed. "It isn't, hey? We'll see about that. I suppose Hetty's a baby? And let a sweet girl like her marry a man like you?" ”

“ In a chill dawn the roper called to Johnson: "Want Casey Jones?"
"No-oo. Catch me Tommy," said the boss.
Nobody but the roper, the horse wrangler and myself marked this weakening. We did not even comment on it among ourselves, but I was much cast down. Of course no man after he has got beyond twenty-five years, or has otherwise arrived at some degree of sense, wants to ride a bucking horse; but when it is put up to him, when it becomes his duty, then the man who shirks is discredited. Yet none of us could think of Lafe as really shirking. ”

“ To a bachelor of long standing, adjustment to married life brings with it certain brain shocks and sudden vistas. It is constantly unfolding surprises that burst on his vision as wonders. So many shifts of their household arrangements struck Lafe as unique that he could not forbear mention of them to his friends in Badger—with the air of a discoverer, confident that nothing like this had ever been done or attempted before in history. ”

“ Fully a score of bulls had been wandering up and down picking fights, so Lafe and the strayman paid no especial attention.
However, it is the essence of folly to ignore bulls in combat if the combat be anywhere near you. None knew this better than Lafe. The bull that finds himself getting the worst of it will invariably break free, swerve aside and dash at the nearest object, as a diversion. Usually his foe goes in hot pursuit.
The two Herefords pawed and bawled and rumbled and butted. Johnson and the cowboy talked, lolling in the saddle. ”

“ For, in the course of human events and in pursuit of that liberty and happiness which constitute the inalienable right of every citizen, a man is apt, from time to time, to get drunk. Nobody in Badger ever held it against him—far from it. Let that then be the excuse for sundry estimable gentlemen who felt badly the morning after Tilly's marriage. Let that explain the presence of the justice of the peace and the sheriff of Badger and Dr. Armstrong, when they foregathered in the Fashion before breakfast, to compare symptoms and to contrive means by which they might last through another sun. ”

“ Lafe sat him firmly, his poise yielding to every new move of the bronco, and he shouted in delight as he plied quirt and spur. Time and again Casey Jones leaped straight into the air and turned back under his rider. Johnson's head would snap back, but his seat was never shaken, and he raked the sorrel from shoulder to flank-cinch. At last Casey Jones stopped, his legs wide apart, his head drooped and his breath whistling. The Anvil men gazed in silence, but with deep approval. ”

“ All the unattached men of Badger developed a taste for the corncakes served at the Fashion. One of the Anvil boys happened to ride into town for a new pair of boots, and took dinner there. What he narrated on his return kept an entire outfit sleepless far into the night, planning methods of getting a day off, and it is on record that twenty-seven extra meals were served in as many days to gentlemen who smelled healthily of horse and walked to a merry jingle of spurs. Hetty treated all alike and was a paragon of waitresses. All aspired to be admirers. ”

“ Surely there was a faint stirring in the corner, the merest pinpoint of a sound. The sheriff whipped out his gun. He could descry nothing, but pointing his forefinger along the barrel to where he thought an object crouched, he thumbed the hammer. It fell with a click on an empty chamber. Before he could pull again, a body hurled itself through the dark on Johnson.
Instantly he grappled it. A knife thrust was the danger now, and he locked his arms about his assailant and heaved sideways, driving his hip against the opposing hip to give momentum to the throw. ”

“ On every side were the distorted, grotesque knolls of melted rocks, brick-red in color, stretching for leagues like a slag-heap from the fires of giants. Not a moving thing had they seen in their progress through this region. A tiny shrub clung here and there in a fissure, where an inch or two of soil had been gathered by the winds, and once Lafe, Jr., had narrowly escaped falling into a devil's pincushion. About three miles to the south towered the highest point in the Malpais, a precipitous hill of scorched rock, crowned with a blunt shaft. Atop this shaft was a dark object. ”

“ On their one side was an expanse of baked clay, loose and flaky like a crust of pastry, that stretched away to the base of some foothills where were areas of green, dotted with grazing cattle. Beyond the hills a mountain gloomed, mist-capped. In the right foreground was a grove of trees with a red house nestling in the midst. A windmill rose beside the house, and not far off, standing naked on the parched plain, was an adobe structure, square, flat-roofed and with a single stove-pipe chimney. ”

“ If you follow a road out of this city—the wood haulers use it, for the most part, with their laden burros—you will descend a mesa by wide sweeps and run slap against a slaughter house. There are corrals and stables also, and a thousand carrion crows will acknowledge your coming by a reluctant lifting of wings. Here Lafe's friend resided and slew thirty head daily for beef. Perhaps his occupation contributed to the study of human problems—killing things is a serious business—at any rate, Buffalo really knew all that a man may know in this life. ”

“ They continued to climb. Often they would see the shooting flames; again, merely a dull glow revealed where the fire raged; and now they were mounting the sheer walls of a cañon, now dipping down the faces of cliffs. A horse rolled into a gulch and crushed his rider's leg. Johnson told off a man to look after the injured one. Another strayed from sight and sound, and bawled frantically for twenty minutes before he caught up with the party. Soon it was necessary to raise the cry of the night trail in broken country. Lafe began it. ”

“ His steers were rollicking, the calves romped high-tailed, the valley pastures held clear-eyed cows and his horses were a comfort between one's knees. Therefore Horne saw that all was good and waxed content of heart, and he bade his boss, Lafe Johnson, to make all ready for a dance, for it was in his mind to do honor to his neighbors, humble and high.
"Tell everybody to come a-running," said he, "and kill the fattest yearlings we've got. Better pick brindles, though, Lafe. Those red ones bring too much money." ”

“ Floyd gurgled delightedly.
This display of malice disturbed Lafe greatly. Such weapons were beyond his knowledge and capacity, and he felt hotly uncomfortable when Sally intimated that they might expect Mrs. Tracey to be talking of them next—if, indeed, she had not done so already. She was for going to Rowdy Cañon without delay to bestow a tongue-lashing on the widow.
"What's the use?" the cowboy said. "Her talk can't hurt nobody. They all know you."
"Some people will believe her."
"Some people will do anything. Never bother with poor trash, Sally. It don't matter what that kind thinks. ”

“ Once a man does a thing, he establishes a precedent which a conscientious individual finds it hard to break—but, bless you, Lafe would never have permitted Hetty to do jobs of this sort, that were within his own powers of performance. So he helped cheerily as dishwasher and assistant housemaid, this gunfighting sheriff of Badger.
Yet Lafe did not emerge wholly scatheless from the ill customs of a lifetime. On a day, old man Horne sent him to Badger in company of a cattle buyer, with whom Horne was making a deal that ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars. ”

“ To this Lafe answered that he would return to Badger in a day or two, and the messenger departed. And for two solid days Johnson dawdled about headquarters, absolutely idle. He had an idea that to show eagerness would be to weaken his position. This surmise proved correct.
Badger leaped at once to the conclusion that they could not get him. Yes, he had seemed reluctant, said the messenger. Now, the average man does not want a thing badly until he is persuaded he can obtain it only by strenuous effort. And masses are like individuals, in this respect. ”

“ MacFarlane did not state what Hetty had told them, but settled herself to study Lafe, with the privileged frankness conferred by her information. He bore the scrutiny well, giving all his attention to the mules, but he was thankful for the bumps that distracted the widow and made her clutch his elbow to avoid being thrown out.
"Isn't it funny I shouldn't have thought about you and her before? It's a small world, isn't it? Of course she told me you were sheriff of Badger. You're a very lucky man, Mr. Johnson," she said. ”

“ He made no attempt to chastise the prospector. A demented man is not responsible and is protected of God. Such is the creed of primitive peoples and to it Lafe held strongly. Manuel whipped the mules and we went by the mountain prowler amid a shower of sand and pebbles. He remained in the trail, staring after us. He shouted something and whirled his arms at a great rate, but when Lafe cantered back, he scurried off among the mesquite like a scared rabbit.
"What an extraordinary person," said Mrs. Vining, when Johnson overtook us. ”

“ Johnson was not one to take chances with an assassin. He began to pump his Winchester. At the second shot Bass's horse lurched forward on to his knees with a scream and stretched out, its legs stiff. His rider scrambled clear and shot Johnson through the fleshy part of his right forearm before he could pull again.
The boss had drawn his six-shooter and was coming on. He coolly changed the weapon to his left hand and threw down on him at twenty yards.
It had often been asserted in Badger that the sheriff could not miss at any distance under two hundred feet. ”

“ The next morning the sheriff called on Tilly at the Fashion and told her to don her best bib and tucker with all speed.
"I'd a heap rather go to this here Slim party's funeral, Tilly," he said, "but I suppose you've got to have him. So get a move on. I reckon Badger can stake you to a wedding."
Naught cared Tilly for this genial slight on her lover. She had him—that was sufficient for her. A woman does not need to respect a man in order to love him devotedly. Moist of face, but radiant, she presented herself before Lafe within an hour.
And to what a wedding did Badger stake the waitress! ”

“ Ability to ride or dexterity with the rope did not win a cowboy a place with the Anvil. He took those who best understood the science of the range. Most of them were Texans, and men of mature years.
"The northern boys make better busters," he told Horne. "Take 'em all in all and they can beat our boys riding. But they don't know cattle like these longhorn Texans do. No, sir; it takes our southern boys to know how to handle cattle."
Thus did Lafe make a propitious start and win respect. And the months went by, and the two in Hope Cañon were ridiculously happy. ”