I Conquered Page 5

  CHAPTER V

  Jed Philosophizes

  Morning: a flickering in the east that gives again to the black hold ofnight. Another attempt, a longer glimmer. It recedes, returns stronger;struggles, bursts from the pall of darkness, and blots out the starsbefore it. And after that first silver white come soft colors--shootsof violet, a wave of pink, then the golden glory of a new day.

  Jed Avery yawned loud and lingeringly, pushing the blankets away fromhis chin with blind, fumbling motions. He thrust both arms from thecovers and reached above his head, up and up and--up! until he endedwith a satisfied groan. He sat erect, opening and shutting his mouth,rubbed his eyes--and stopped a motion half completed.

  Danny Lenox slept with lips parted. His brown hair--the hair thatwanted to curl so badly--was well down over the brow, and the skinbeneath those locks was damp. One hand rested on the tarpaulin coveringof the bed, the fingers in continual motion.

  "Poor kid!" Jed muttered under his breath. "Poor son of a gun! He's ina jack-pot, all right, an' it'll take all any man ever had to pull--"

  "'Mornin', sonny!" he cried as Danny opened his eyes and raised hishead with a start.

  For a moment the boy stared at him, evidencing no recognition. Then hesmiled and sat up.

  "How are you, Mr. Avery?"

  "Well," the other began grimly, looking straight before him, "Mr.Avery's in a bad way. He died about thirty year ago."

  Danny looked at him with a grin.

  "But Old Jed--Old VB," he went on, "he's alive an' happy. Fancywrappin's is for boxes of candy an' playin' cards," he explained. "Theyain't necessary to men."

  "I see--all right, Jed!"

  Danny stared about him at the freshness of the young day.

  "Wouldn't it be slick," Jed wanted to know, "if we was all fixed liketh' feller who makes th' days? If yesterday's was a bad job he canstart right in on this one an' make it a winner! Now, if this day turnsout bad he can forget it an' begin to-morrow at sun-up to try th' joball over again!"

  "Yes, it would be fine to have more chances," agreed Danny.

  Jed sat silent a moment.

  "Mebby so, an' mebby no," he finally recanted. "It would be slick an'easy, all right; but mebby we'd get shiftless. Mebby we'd keep puttin'off tryin' hard until next time. As 'tis, we have to make every chanceour only one, an' work ourselves to th' limit. Never let a chance getaway! Throw it an' tie it an' hang on!"

  "In other words, think it's now or never?"

  Jed reached for a boot and declared solemnly:

  "It's th' only thing that keeps us onery human bein's on our feet an'movin' along!"

  Breakfast was a brief affair, brief but enthusiastic. The gastronomicfeats performed at that table were things at which to marvel, and Dannydivided his thoughts between wonder at them and recalling the events ofthe night before. Only once did he catch Rhues's eyes, and then theleer which came from them whipped a flush high in his cheeks.

  Jed and Danny rode out into the morning side by side, smoking some ofthe boy's tobacco. As the sun mounted and the breeze did not rise, theheat became too intense for a coat, and Danny stripped his off and tiedit behind the saddle. Jed looked at the pink silk shirt a long time.

  "To be sure an' that's a fine piece of goods," he finally declared.

  Danny glanced down at the gorgeous garment with a mingled feeling ofamusement and guilt. But he merely said:

  "I thought so, too, when I bought it."

  And even that little tendency toward foppishness which has been handeddown to men from those ancestors who paraded in their finest skins andpaints before the home of stalwart cave women seemed to draw the twocloser to each other.

  As though he could sense the young chap's bewilderment and wonder atthe life about him, Jed related much that pertained to his own work.

  "Yes, I raise some horses," he concluded, "but I sell a lot of wildones, too. It's fun chasin' 'em, and it gets to be a habit with afeller. I like it an' can make a livin' at it, so why should I go intocattle? Those horses are out there in th' hills, runnin' wild, likesome folks, an' doin' nobody no good. I catch 'em an' halter-break 'eman' they go to th' river an' get to be of use to somebody."

  "Isn't it a job to catch them?" Danny asked.

  "Well, I guess so!" Jed's eyes sparkled.

  "Some of 'em are wiser than a bad man. Why, up in our country's astallion that ain't never had a rope on him. Th' Captain we've got tocall him. He's th' wildest an' wisest critter, horse or human, you eversee. Eight years old, an' all his life he's been chased an' nevertouched. He's big--not so big in weight; big like this here manNapoleon, I mean. He rules th' range. He has th' best mares on th'mountain in his bunch, an' he handles 'em like a king. We've tosseddown our whole hand time an' again, but he always beats us out. We'reno nearer catchin' him to-day than we was when he run a yearlin'."

  The little man's voice rose shrilly and his eyes flashed until Danny,gazing on him, caught some of his fever and felt it run to the ends ofhis body.

  "Oh, but that's a horse!" Jed went on. "Why, just to see him standin'up on the sky line, head up, tail arched-like, ready to run, notscared, just darin' us to come get him--well, it's worth a hard ride.There's somethin' about th' Captain that keeps us from hatin' him. Byall natural rights somebody ought to shoot a stallion that'll run wildso long an' drive off bunches of gentle mares an' make 'em crazy wild.But no. Nobody on Red Mountain or nobody who ever chased th' Captainhas wanted to harm him; yet I've heard men swear until it would makeyour hair curl when they was runnin' him! He's that kind. He gets tosomethin' that's in real men that makes 'em light headed. I guess it'shis strength. He's bigger'n tricks, that horse. He's learned all abouttraps an' such, an' th' way men generally catch wild horses don'tbother him at all. Lordy, boy, but th' Captain's somethin' to set upnights an' talk about!"

  His voice dropped on that declaration, almost in reverence.

  "Well, he's so wise and strong that he'll just keep right on runningfree; is that the idea?" asked Danny.

  Jed gnawed off a fresh chew and repocketed the plug, shifted in hissaddle, and shook his head.

  "Nope, I guess not," he said gravely. "I don't reckon so, because itain't natural; it ain't th' way things is done in this world. Did youever stop to think that of all th' strong things us men has knowedabout somethin' has always turned up to be a little bit stronger? We'vebeen all th' time pattin' ourselves on th' back an' sayin', 'There,we've gone an' done it; that'll last forever!' an' then watchin' a windor a rain carry off what we've thought was so strong. Either that, Isay, or else we've been fallin' down on our knees an' prayin' for helpto stop somethin' new an' powerful that's showed up. An' when prayin'didn't do no good up pops somebody with an idea that th' Lord wants usfolks to carry th' heavy end of th' load in such matters, an' gets busyworkin'. An' his job ends up by makin' somethin' so strong that itsatisfied all them prayers--folks bein' that unparticular that theydon't mind where th' answer comes from so long as it comes an' theygets th' benefits!

  "That's th' way it is all th' time. We wake up in th' mornin' an' seesomethin' so discouragin' that we want to crawl back to bed an' quittryin'; then we stop to think that nothin' has ever been so great or sostrong that it kept right on havin' its own way all th' time; an' weget our sand up an' pitch in, an' pretty soon we're on top!

  "All we need is th' sand to tackle big jobs; just bein' sure thatthey's some way of doin' or preventin' an' makin' a reg'lar hunt forthat one thing. So 'tis with th' Captain. He's fooled us a long timenow, but some day a man'll come along who's wiser than th' Captain, an'he'll get caught.

  "Nothin' strange about it. Just th' workin' out of things. 'Course,it'll all depend on th' man. Mebby some of us on th' mountain has th'brains; mebby some others has th' sand, but th' combination ain't beenstruck yet. We ain't _men_ enough. Th' feller who catches that horsehas got to be all man, just like th' feller who beats out anythin' elsethat's hard; got to be man all th' way through. If he's only part manan' tackles th' job he's likely to get trom
ped on; if he's all man,he'll do th' ridin'."

  Jed stopped talking and gazed dreamily at the far horizon; dreamily,but with an eye which moved a trifle now and then to take into itsrange the young chap who rode beside him. Danny's head was down, facingthe dust which rose from the feet of the horses ahead. The bitingparticles irritated the membrane of his throat, but for the moment hedid not heed. "Am I a man--all the way through?" he kept askinghimself. "All the way through?"

  And then his nerves stung him viciously, shrieking for the stimulantwhich had fed them so long and so well. His aching muscles pleaded forit; his heart, miserable and lonely, missed the close, recklessfriendships of those days so shortly removed, in spite of hisrealization of what those relations had meant; he yearned for thewarming, heedless thrills; his eyes ached and called out for just theone draft that would make them alert, less hurtful.

  From every joint in his body came the begging! But that chord down inhis heart still vibrated; his father's arraignment was in his ears, itstruth ringing clearly. The incentive to forge ahead, to stop thewasting, grew bigger, and his will stood stanch in spite of the factthat his spinning brain played such tricks as making the click ofpebbles sound like the clink of ice in glasses!

  Then, too, there was Jed, the big-hearted, beside him. And Jed wassaying, after a long silence, as though he still thought of his theme:"Yes, sir, us men can do any old thing if we only think so! Nothin' hasever been too much for us; nothin' ever will--if we only keep onthinkin' as men ought to think an' respectin' ourselves."

  Thus they traveled, side by side, the one fighting, the other utteringhis homely truths and watching, always watching, noting effects,detecting temptations when the strain across the worried brow and aboutthe tight mouth approached the breaking point. With keen intuition hewent down into the young fellow and found the vibrating chord, the onethat had been set humming by scorn and distrust. But instead of abusingit, instead of goading it on, Jed nursed it, fed it, strengthening thechord itself with his philosophy and his optimism.

  They went on down Ant Creek, past the ranches which spread across thenarrow valley. Again they slept under the open skies, and Danny oncemore marveled at the stars.

  That second morning was agony, but Jed knew no relenting.

  "You're sore an' stiff," he said, "but keepin' at a thing when it hurtsis what counts, is what gets a feller well--an' that applies to morethings than saddle sores, too."

  He said the last as though aside, but the point carried.

  At the mouth of the creek, where it flows into Clear River, they swungto the west and went downstream. Danny's condition became onlysemi-conscious. His head hung, his eyes were but half opened. Livingresolved itself into three things. First and second: the thunderingdemands and the stubborn resistance of his will. When Jed spoke androused him the remaining element come to the fore: his physicalsuffering. That agony became more and more acute as the miles passed,but in spite of its sharpness it required the influence of hiscompanion's voice to awaken him to its reality.

  Always, in a little back chamber of his mind, was a bit of glowingwarmth--his newly born love for the man who rode beside him.

  It was night when they reached the ranch.

  "We're arrived, sonny! This is home!" cried Jed, slapping Danny on theshoulder. "Our home."

  The boy mastered his senses with an effort. When he dismounted heslumped to one knee and Jed had to help him stand erect.

  Danny remembered nothing of the bed going, nor could he tell how longthe little, gray-haired man stood over him, muttering now and then,rubbing his palms together; nor of how, when he turned toward thecandle on the table, burning steadily and brightly there in the nightlike a young Crusader fighting back the shadows into the veriest cornerof the room, his eyes were misted.

  It was a strange awakening, that which followed. Danny felt as thoughhe had slept through a whole phase of his existence. At first he wasnot conscious of his surroundings, did not try to remember where he wasor what had gone before. He lay on his back, mantled in a strangepeace, wonderfully content. Torture seemed to have left him, bodilytorments had fled. His heart pumped slowly; a vague, pleasing weaknesswas in his bones. It was rest--rest after achievement, the achievementof stability, the arrival at a goal.

  Then, breaking into full consciousness, his nostrils detected odors. Hesniffed slightly, scarcely knowing that he did so. Cooking! It wasunlike other smells from places of cookery that he had known; it wasattractive, compelling.

  All that had happened since his departure from Colt came back to himwith his first movement. His body was a center of misery, as though itwere shot full of needles, as though it had been stretched on a rack,then blistered. Dressing was accomplished to the accompaniment of manygrunts and quick intakings of breath.

  When he tried to walk he found that the process was necessarilyslow--slower than it had ever been before. Setting each foot before theother gingerly, as if in experiment, he walked across the tiny roomtoward the larger apartment of the cabin.

  "Mornin'!" cried Jed, closing the oven door with a gentleness thatrequired the service of both hands. "I allowed you'd be up about now.Just step outside an' wash an' it'll be about ready. Can you eat? OldVB sure can build a breakfast, an' he's never done better than this."

  "By the smell, I judge so," said Danny.

  The warm breath of baking biscuits came to him from the oven. Asputtering gurgle on the stove told that something fried. The aroma ofcoffee was in the air, too, and Jed lifted eggs from a battered pail todrop them into a steaming kettle. The table, its plain top scrubbed towhiteness, was set for two, and the sunlight that streamed through thewindow seemed to be all caught and concentrated in a great glass jar ofhoney that served as a centerpiece.

  Danny's eyes and nostrils and ears took it all in as he moved towardthe outer doorway. When he gained it he paused, a hand on the lowlintel, and looked out upon his world.

  Away to the south stretched the gulch, rolling of bottom, covered withthe gray-green sage. Over east rose the stern wall, scarred and split,with cedars clinging in the interstices, their forms dark green againstthe saffron of the rocks. Up above, towering into the unstained sky ofmorning, a rounded, fluted peak, like the crowning achievement of somevast cathedral.

  The sun was just in sight above the cliff, but Danny knew that day wasaging, and felt, with his peace, a sudden sharp affection for the oldman who, with an indulgence that was close to motherly, had let himsleep. It made him feel young and incompetent, yet it was good,comforting--like the peace of that great stillness about him.

  Except for the soft sounds from the stove, there was no break. Above,on the ridges, a breeze might be blowing; but not an intimation of itdown here. Just quiet--silvery and holy.

  The sun shoved itself clear of the screening trees. A jack rabbit,startled by nothing at all, sprang from its crouching under a brushshelter and made off across the gulch with the jerky lightness of astone skipping on water. As he bobbed the grass and bushes dewdropsflew from them, catching sunbeams as they hurtled out to their death,for one instant of wondrous glory flashing like gems.

  Danny Lenox, late of New York, drew a deep, quivering breath and leanedhis head against the crude doorway. He was sore and weak and feltalmost hysterical, but perhaps this was only because he was so happy!