Home Ranch Read Free

called.
    Mr. Batchlett pulled his horse up so short he nearly sat it down. “Morning!” he said roughly. “You wasn’t fool enough to . . .” Then he looked Lady over from head to croup, and asked, “What time this mornin’?”
    â€œAbout ten minutes past twelve,” I told him, “but it’s morning any time after midnight, isn’t it?”
    Mr. Batchlett didn’t answer, but swung out of his saddle, came over, and ran his hand along Lady’s back and belly. I knew what he was looking for; if I had ridden her hard enough to do her any harm she’d be trembling, and the nerves under her skin would be twitching. “Guess she’s all right,” he said, “but a man could ruin an old mare like this with fifty miles in a straight stretch.”
    â€œLady isn’t very old,” I told him, “only eight. And we did most of our traveling in the cool of the night and morning. And besides, I only w . . .”
    â€œYeah, I know. You only weigh as much as a hoptoad.”
    I was going to tell Mr. Batchlett that my weight wouldn’t make any difference about handling cows, but the old man with the gray mustache cut in. “Fifty miles, huhh!” he snorted. “By dogies, a man would think . . . why, I recollect when I was the size of this here young’un I rid a flea-bit cayuse from . . .”
    â€œI know, I know, Hank,” Mr. Batchlett said, “but you just ride that fry pan till we get some grub around here. I want to make it into the corrals before nightfall.”
    The old man started back toward the wagon, but he’d only gone a couple of yards when he turned and hollered, “Boy, wrastle me up some firewood; you ain’t did nothin’ to be a-braggin’ ’bout, and we ain’t got all day to . . .” Then without finishing, he turned and stumped away. He rolled from side to side as he walked, and was so bowlegged that a fat hog could have run between his knees without touching either one.
    Mr. Batchlett winked at me, and said, “You’ll get used to Hank. Never mind the wood; Sid’s fetching it.” Then he looked up at me quickly, and asked, “Water the mare at The Monument?”
    â€œNo, sir,” I told him. “She was too warm then.”
    â€œCooled out enough now,” he said, pointing toward some willows half a mile to the north. “Better give her a couple of swallows; it’s a dry run from here to the home ranch.”
    I got a pretty fair look at the herd when I was riding Lady to water, but I was a lot more interested in the other two cowhands than in the cows—and I couldn’t help remembering what the storekeeper at Castle Rock had said. I wasn’t close enough to see what either man’s face looked like, but they certainly looked funny in the saddle. The one who was dragging wood to the wagon didn’t look to be any bigger than I, and was mounted on a tall piebald horse that looked like a short-necked giraffe.
    The other rider was just the opposite. From where I was he looked to be seven feet tall, and was mounted on a mule that wasn’t much bigger than a burro. His stirrups were so short he looked as if he were sitting in a chair, and he rode hunched over—as if he had a bellyache. I’d have had one if I’d been riding that mule. It was going round and round the herd at a steady dogtrot that would have shaken the teeth out of a garden rake. And, over the bellowing of the herd, he was calling out to the cows, in a voice as monotonous as the mule’s trot, “hup . . . yaaa, hup . . . yaaa.” It sounded like a gramophone record that was stuck and saying the same words over every time it went around.
    The tall man was still riding around the herd when I’d watered Lady and was heading back to the chuckwagon. From behind it a thin line of blue smoke was