The Arrow-Point Estate/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
Just a week from the day he wrote that letter, Reid, moody and uncertain of temper, came from the cook-tent to the corral one morning to find Artless the blunderer cinching up his saddle on a horse that belonged in Reid’s string; which is, among men of the range, the sin unforgivable.
A hand came down heavily on his shoulder.
Reid did not, in the first moment of realization, say anything. He simply undid the latigo with two or three jerks, yanked off the saddle, swung it twice to give it the proper momentum, and then threw it as far as his strength would permit.
His strength permitted the saddle to catch Uncle Howard just back of the knees—that part of one’s anatomy which crumples very easily. Uncle Howard crumpled with a suddenness that doubtless astonished the dignified soul of him. Reid watched the disaster impenitently from the tail of his eye, the while he told Artless many things that should happen to the man who saddled the horse of another without permission.
Artless was scared. “I was going to catch one of my own band,” he explained shakingly, “but when I threw the lasoo”—he pronounced it just like that—“it happened to get around this one’s neck. I didn’t think you’d be using it to-day, so”
“Which I won't,” Reid retorted. “That isn’t the point. A string”
“Who threw that saddle?” It was Uncle Howard, on his feet and unrighteously angry.
“I did,” snapped Reid, without pretense of apology.
Whereupon words grew thick in that vicinity. In the end Uncle Howard unwisely referred openly to the manner of Reid’s advent into that country, and drew certain inferences as to Reid’s immediate past.
Reid—this time with deliberate intent—replied to the taunts by knocking Uncle Howard down again. After that it looked, for a few minutes, as if there would certainly be some shooting. That there was not was due to Reid’s perfect coolness in all that he said or did. He may have been in a rage, but it was not the rage which breeds hasty words and hastier actions; so he dragged his bed out into the open, tied it on a meek little sorrel, and threw his saddle on another not so meek; took the check Uncle Howard had drawn in his name—the signature was notably shaky—and departed. And the tents of the Arrow-Point knew him no more for a season.
At the home ranch of the Arrow-Point, whither Reid went with his bed, he tarried a day; not because he was needed, but because he liked to be there much better than any other place he could think of. He told Lorrie little except that he and Uncle Howard couldn’t agree; it was to Skookum that he retailed with relish the encounter and the cause thereof, and confided the certainty that Uncle Howard would chase him off the ranch if he came home and found him there.
Skookum sighed and reiterated his wish that Burns and Lorrie had got married, so that Uncle Howard couldn’t come there and boss them around so. Which desire Reid, for some reason not plain to Skookum, seemed to meet with a curious lack of enthusiasm.
On the second day he saddled Mister and rode in to town after the mail, telling Skookum he would be back before noon. He was anxious for an answer to the letter he had written, and he did get a letter that day. It was not, however, the one he was looking for; it was from Burns. Reid leaned against the dusty desk in the post-office while he read it.
Burns was in Idaho, on upper Snake River, and it was plain that he wrote hoping that Reid, in answering, would tell him about Lorrie. Part of the letter is worth repeating.
- I don’t know as this will find you at the old place. I met Rhody in Wyoming, and he was headed south. He had drifted right after I did, though, so he didn’t know how things were going any more than I did. How are they making out? Did Aunt Margaret win out and get them hazed off to school? I’ll bet if they did they had a warm time with Skookum. How’s the kid, anyway? Tell him I'd like to hear from him, if he isn’t too busy to write to a fellow.
- I don’t know how long I’ll be here. I just came a week or so ago. I see quite a lot of Arrow-Points out here. Uncle Howard must have been selling off stock pretty brisk, which looks to me like a blamed poor move, with cattle on the raise all the time. I'll gamble he wouldn’t sell off his own stock cattle right at this time. Do you know the man that bought these? I heard he’s just starting in here; carries the Dipper brand.
- Well, if you haven’t been canned before this, I hope you'll write a few lines. I feel like a stray, sure enough; I was on that range too long to feel at home on any other. I just had to get out before the temptation to stake Uncle Howard to his sky-ticket got the best of me. I sure did want to burn powder under that long, sanctimonious beak of his before I left.
- Well, so-long. Write soon and tell me all the news. Tell Skookum hello for me.
Your friend,
Frank L. Burns.
If you write inside a couple of weeks, address the letter to Blue River, Idaho. My regards to Lorrie.
Reid folded the letter slowly and slid it thoughtfully into the envelope. He rolled a cigarette absently and half-smoked it before he roused enough to take an elbow off the desk and glance about him. The clerk behind the little counter where stamps and ten-cent magazines were sold was eying him curiously. Reid went over to him.
“Can you tell me when the next train leaves, going west?” he asked.
“In about an hour, if she’s on time—and I guess she is. They’re getting ready to take the mail up now.”
Reid bought the first magazine he got his hand on and went out, mounted Mister and rode to the nearest saloon. There he dragged an acquaintance away from a half-hearted game of billiards, told him he had to leave town at once, and seeing he lived out near the Arrow-Point Ranch, would he please lead his horse out for him and take the mail along?
The other said “Sure!” in the hearty tone which makes up in cordiality for the lack of more words, and Reid thanked him and gave him the bundle of mail. Then he headed straight for the depot and bought a ticket for Blue River, Idaho.