Man of the Family by Ralph Moody Read Free Book Online Page B

due.” I rode right on toward him, and he didn’t tell me to go back again.
    Ever since I’d seen the cattle in the cut and thought about the mail train being due, I’d been trying to think what Hi or Father would do if they had cattle in that kind of fix. By the time I rode up to the trail boss, I knew; so I hollered, “Don’t try to turn these back, and never mind the other track. Send your men over the hill to cut ’em off at that end, then drive ’em out this way.”
    He started bellowing like a bull in a cattle chute, and waving his arm for the men to follow him up over the hill. I didn’t go with them, but rode Pinto up onto the track where King and I could head the cattle down off the grade as they came through the cut. One breachy old heifer dodged past us and went galloping along right between the rails, but I didn’t have time to go after her. Less than two minutes after the drivers brought the last cattle out of the cut, I saw the mail train coming. I would have had time to ride Pinto to the end of the grade, but I was a bit scared I wouldn’t, and slid him down over the cinder bank. After I saw the train I forgot all about the old cow that had dodged past me, so I didn’t see when it hit her. It must have knocked her twenty rods; about all we ever found was hoofs and horns.

    While the train was going by I rode over to the trail boss. He looked as if he’d just come through a dip tank. He had his head down, and sweat was pouring off both him and his horse. Pinto wasn’t acting up so much, either. He was getting a little more used to me, and he was probably a bit tired, too. All of us must have looked sort of beaten up. I didn’t know it then, but the side of my face got a little bit skinned when Pinto tossed me off in the schoolyard, and some blood had run down my neck and onto the collar of my blue shirt.
    I thought I’d better make my deal right away, before the boss got busy with the cattle again, so I said, “I think you’ll have a lot more trouble when you get this herd into Littleton. . . .”
    That’s as far as I got for two or three minutes, but I don’t think it would be right to put down what he said about those cattle, or fences, or the railroad, or Littleton. I waited till he’d cooled off some, then I told him about having ten boys on horseback, and that we’d see his herd safe through town for ten dollars.
    â€œIt’s a holdup,” he hollered. Then he grinned at me, and said, “You didn’t bust down that fence so’s to get me into this mess, did you?”
    â€œI never broke down any fence,” I said. “You come back with me and I’ll show you where all those posts are rotted off at the ground. There are a lot more holes between here and Littleton.”
    When I told him there were more holes he began to laugh to beat the band. He slapped his leg with his hand, and howled, “Damned if you ain’t a salesman. Sure there ain’t no bridges out between here and town?”
    â€œNo,” I said, “there’s only one bridge, but you’ll have to look out for the loose planks near Lenheart’s end of it. Some of them are pretty bad.”
    He waved to his men to start moving the cattle out of the C. & S. cut, then he said to me, “I reckon I already got ten dollars’ worth of good outa you, but you ain’t goin’ to get it till your outfit sees me from here clean on through town.”
    I was already pulling Pinto around toward Littleton, but I hollered back to him, “Will I get it then?”
    â€œYou’ll get it,” he called, and I rode after the boys.
    We had a dickens of a time. Some of the boys didn’t know you have to move cattle easy, and wanted to play cowboy. And some of them just wanted to play. I had stopped by home and put Lady’s bridle on Pinto so I could hold him, but he still didn’t like me