THE EXILE
OF THE LARIAT
CHAPTER I
CHRISTMAS
SO the fine adventure had failed. Not but what Hugh knew that on the morrow he would begin to plan another and equally fine adventure. Yet he and Fred and old Red Wolf were as deeply depressed as though all the fossil remains of Wyoming had been destroyed when the slide had crushed the newly exposed body of the giant dinosaur. To be sure, Red Wolf, after the first shock of failure had passed, had tried to tell Hugh of a certain fabulous cliff dwelling full of bones, sacred to the mysterious origins of the Sioux tribe. But Hugh, disappointed and bereft, would not listen. He gave orders to break camp and the start for home was made two hours after the south slope of the mountain had jealously recovered the remains of that gigantic memory of the past.
The mountain bordered the extreme west line of the Old Sioux Tract. The Roaring Chief river paralleled the west line of the Tract, fifteen miles to the east. Between lay a rugged upheaval of mountains and canyons, deep now in December snows.
It was mid-morning when Hugh led the way out of the camp under the lee of the mountain, southeastward into the wild valley that lay between the fossil peak and the flat-topped plateau known chiefly as the haunt of wild horses. Save for occasional gnarled cedar clumps, the brilliant orange and red sides of the peak and the plateau were barren. Even the snow had been unable to cling to those steep, hard walls. But the floor of the valley was covered with quivering aspens whose pastel-green trunks and delicate gray boughs were set too thick to permit the passage of a rider. Hugh led the little caravan along the rough snowy space that remained open between the wall of the plateau and the aspen grove.
The going was extremely rough Hugh sat tense in the saddle, spurring his horse, Fossil, over rock heaps and through drifts as though he found mental easement in doubling thus the difficulties of the trail. Fred Allward, the little gray-bearded man who drove the freight wagon, and old Red Wolf, driving the sheep wagon, huddled in their mackinaws, swore at the mules and glanced askance at Hugh.
Hugh, in spite of the tensity of his seat, rode with the easy assurance of one bred to the saddle. He showed thin and muscular even through his mackinaw and corduroy riding breeches. A round beaver skin cap, pulled low, hid all his hair save a thick chestnut lock that blew across his forehead. His face was long and thin like his body, with high cheek bones and a long jaw line that showed sharply beneath his ears. There were lines around his gray eyes, drawn there by sun strain, by irritation and by humor. It was by no means a handsome face—though it clearly showed a fine intelligence. His mouth alone was beautiful. It was full curved and sensitive; a curiously ardent mouth to dwell in so fine-drawn a face. Hugh was in the thirtieth year of his age.
It was three o’clock when he led the way out of the narrow valley into a wider one, blue with snow and treeless save for a grove of spruce a mile to the north. Hugh headed directly for this grove, and Fred sighed with relief and lighted his pipe.
Hugh, too, suddenly conscious of the unbelievable beauty about him, relaxed a little in the saddle. A world of blue sky and snow and distant heaven-kissing peaks Even the spruce trees, as he led toward them, showed a true, though darker, blue, against the snow. The great bronze cones, massed in the higher boughs of the trees, gave the only variety to the great monotone.
At the edge of the grove, Hugh turned in the saddle. “Let’s make camp, boys!” he called
Fred pulled his mules to their haunches so suddenly that Red Wolf’s team bumped their noses on the tailboard of the freight wagon. Red Wolf grunted, swung his mules clear and leaped over their flinging hind legs to the ground. He began to unhitch at once while Fred built the fire in the little stove in the sheep wagon and Hugh, with his gun over his arm, followed new rabbit tracks that led into the grove.
It was dusk when the three men crowded into the sheep wagon to eat supper. It was as snug within as the cabin of a tiny ship. There were bunks at one end of the wagon, a little stove and kitchen fittings at the other. In the middle, a narrow table that lifted against the frame of the canopy when not in use. When all the fried rabbit had been devoured and the third round of coffee begun, Hugh broke the silence by saying, “Well, I’m sorry I went loco this morning, boys. But that was the most nearly perfect specimen I’ve ever seen, and it was nothing but fool carelessness that lost him to us.”
“My carelessness, mostly,” grunted Fred, draining his coffee cup, then taking a huge bite of plug. “You’d think I’d have learned how to shore up a wall after thirty years of mining.”
“An autopsy isn’t going to bring back the dinosaur,” sighed Hugh. “We’ll get back to Fort Sioux and outfit for prospecting Lost Basin. The snows won’t get in there before February.”
Red Wolf, his lean, wrinkled, bronze face concentrated above the cigarette he was rolling, gave no apparent heed to these comments. But when he had lighted the cigarette he looked thoughtfully at Hugh.
“Sioux Injuns,” he said, “know heap more ’bout Old Sioux Tract than whites do.”
Hugh returned the old Indian’s look with sudden interest. “Does that mean you’ve got a story to tell me, Red Wolf?”
The old Sioux continued to stare at Hugh. He and the young scientist had been friends since Hugh’s childish days of arrow-head collecting. But even at that, it was obvious that Red Wolf was wondering whether or not to speak. Fred jammed another cedar knot into the stove, piled the dishes in a pan, heaped the pan high with snow and set it on a red-hot lid. Then he established his feet on the hearth, took another bite of plug and waited. Finally Red Wolf said, in his husky, carefully modulated voice:
“Your Uncle Bookie, he owns Old Sioux Tract, but he never use it. Great Spirit won’t let ’em. You know why?”
Hugh shook his head “Uncle Bookie’s been as secret with me about the Tract as he has with every one else.”
“That’s all bunk!” exclaimed Fred “Everybody knows the Old Sioux Tract is mixed up in Bookie’s mind with Jimmie Duncan and the cattle wars of the eighties. Some of us always did think Bookie knew a lot about Jimmie’s disappearance.”
“O dry up, Fred!” growled Hugh, as he lighted his pipe “Uncle Bookie was a little wild as a young fellow, but he’d never be morbid about it. Fact is, I think he’s as proud of the notches on his gun as he is of The Lariat.”
“A little wild!” snorted Fred. “Say, Hughie, you young fellows that have always put Bookie down as a gentle old has-been would drop dead if you could see that man’s man as he was in the old days. He come out here full of Harvard education and everybody laughed at him. But before he’d been here five years, he’d settled the cattle war at the point of his gun, helped himself to what land he wanted from the old Frisco gang he’d rid out and settled down to ranch life. Just how he did it, or how many notches he carries on that old six-shooter of his, only Bookie knows.”
Hugh nodded. “I’ve always known that. Nevertheless I always thought his feeling against any use being made of the Old Sioux Tract had something to do with an old love affair.”
“You’re crazy, Hughie! No woman’s influence could last that long with a he-man, like Bookie.”
Hugh shrugged his shoulders, thought of Jessie, and turned to Red Wolf, who was listening patiently.
“Why don’t the Great Spirit let Uncle Bookie use the Tract, Red Wolf?” he asked
“This valley,” said the Sioux, “run ten miles over to river canyon.”
“I know,” nodded Hugh.
“All Injuns of the world,” Red Wolf went on, “Great Spirit borned them in this valley, by river. Long, long time ago, before any white man was born on earth the Great Spirit, he made a few Injuns and put ’em in this valley and showed ’em trail lead to cave, above river. ‘Injuns,’ said Great Spirit, ‘you live there. You stay there. You be safe. You have many children. You rule earth, if you stay here and no fight. No fight yourselves. When one Injun first fight other Injun then world be full of trouble for all Injuns.’”
Hugh listened with kindling interest. Fred’s bearded face was expressionless.
“Injuns had many, many children,” Red Wolf went on. “Soon cave pretty near full of Injuns. But they never fight. Pretty happy. Then, one day, young Injun, he made bow and arrow, first one ever made on earth. He make mistake and shoot other boy. That start terrible fight. All Injuns take sides, make bows and arrows, kill each other till only one Injun man, one Injun squaw left. And they bleed much. Then Great Spirit, he heap mad. He drive out man and woman. He break up trail to cave. He say no Injun ever can come back. He put Devil Beast in to watch cave. Devil Beast he eat any Injun that come back to cave. Injuns, they never had home since. They no can have home till some one kill the Devil Beast, take him out of cave. Then Injuns they come back to cave, have many children, rule earth.”
“Has any one ever seen the Devil Beast, Red Wolf?” asked Hugh.
“Blood curse on any Injun ever try to get down to cave,” replied the Sioux evasively.
Hugh eyed his old friend thoughtfully. “What do you suppose that Devil Beast looks like, Red Wolf?”
Red Wolf shook his head “I don’t know. But old, old chief told my father he look like stone devil, slide cover up this morning.”
Hugh lifted his head excitedly “Lord, Red Wolf, why haven’t you told me this before?”
“We never dig up devil look like this before,” replied the Indian, as if the answer were final.
“Naturally not,” said Hugh. “One doesn’t go out and dig up a Triceratops every morning before breakfast. Show me where this cave is, Red Wolf.”
The old Sioux scowled and rolled another cigarette before he replied.
“You get that Stone Devil uncovered, ready to move out of mountain. Great Spirit send slide, take him back. All Injuns but me they heap much afraid of Stone Devils. Now me heap afraid.”
“Maybe it’s meant for Indians to be afraid,” said Hugh. “But also, it’s evidently meant that the white man must take that Devil out of the cave. You let me have a look at him, old boy”
“Maybe it’s just naturally unlucky, Hughie,” Fred spoke cautiously. “Must be some kind of bad medicine connected with it because the Indians never talk about it to the whites. This is the first time I ever heard of it.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Hugh, “as if there were any reason why an Indian ever should tell a white anything!”
Red Wolf nodded “Whites, heap big liars, always laugh at Injuns. All but Hughie.”
“Go on, you big red man!” shouted Fred. “Did you ever have a better friend than me?”
“He, a better friend,” replied Red Wolf, pointing at Hugh. Then he added anxiously, “You not afraid?”
“Not a bit,” returned Hugh. “We’ll camp on the canyon edge tomorrow evening. Come on! Let’s get to bed and have an early start.”
They covered the ten snow-packed miles before dusk the next afternoon. The valley sloped rapidly toward the river, so speed was possible despite the difficulties of the trail. All signs of trees, even of sage brush, disappeared before they reached the end of the day’s journey. They made the night camp in a shallow draw which opened into the river canyon.
The moon rose before supper was ready, and Hugh, having hobbled Fossil to the mutual satisfaction of himself and the horse, stood at the canyon end of the draw, staring down at the vague black tracing of the river below. He had little doubt that Red Wolf’s story was founded upon some actual tragedy of the past and all the scientist in him was on tip-toe with interest. Somewhere beneath the keen, fossil-hunting paleontologist which was the Hugh his wife and friends knew, there might have been a Hugh as ardent, that night, as his sensitive mouth suggested. Yet, Hugh himself was unconscious of the fact, for though thrilled by the beauty of the scene, he was wishing, not that Uncle Bookie, or Jessie, his wife, were sharing the wonder of the night with him. He was wishing that he were sufficiently the artist to reproduce the magic of this fossil country for his report on this the most tantalizing and so far the most disappointing of his expeditions.
Considering his claim that he never had been in the cave, Red Wolf showed a surprising accuracy of knowledge as to the best method of reaching that place of mystery.
“Can’t climb down,” he said that evening in reply to Hugh’s query. “Cave maybe fifty feet down and under.Can’t see from top. You have let us lower you down, then you have swing yourself under See?”
Hugh nodded. “That new one-inch manila will come in right.”
Fred grunted. “You’ve got more enthusiasm over stone birds than I have, Hughie.”
“You’d risk it for a mine discovery, without turning a hair, Fred,” chuckled Hugh.
“Right!” agreed Fred, “but not for Injun bones.”
Nevertheless, the next morning when the three men crept to the edge of the river canyon and peered over at the receding wall, Fred insisted that his be the privilege of making the initial trip. Hugh, his eyes bright and eager, laughed at him.
“I’m the Columbus of this expedition, Fred! Here, ease this knot under my shoulder blade. I wouldn’t miss being the first down for a thousand dollars.”
“You’re risking a good deal on an Injun’s pipe dream,” insisted Fred. “And supposing there is a jinx on the place like he says.”
Red Wolf stared at Fred impersonally, then turned to Hugh
“You got your hammer?”
“Yes, inside my coat. I’ll use the pick to help fend me from the wall. Come on, boys, lower away Snub to the wagon axle when I shout.”
Hugh seated himself on the icy edge of the brim which was still slippery in spite of Fred’s efforts to roughen it with his axe. Then he slid slowly out into space, turning as he did so to face the canyon wall. This receded gently but decidedly, so that by the time he had been lowered twenty feet he was almost beyond arm reach of its smooth red face. He gave himself a gentle push, calling to the men to let the rope out rapidly. By the time he had reached a black opening in the menacing red wall, he was oscillating gently back and forth.
“Snub her, quick, Fred!” he shouted. He worked his long body pendulum-like now until the gentle oscillation had increased to a wide stroke that carried him far out above the sickening depths below, then well into the door of the cave. He flung his pick axe into the opening and grasped the side of the orifice, slid for a painful moment, then, a little white and breathless, stood firmly within the cave. He untied the rope and looped it over a black cedar log that projected into the doorway, then he looked about him.
The light of the rising sun flooded the cave. First he saw a level stone floor, littered with human bones, with arrow heads and stone axes; a red floor with bones ghastly white, and in pathetically entangled heaps, telling of death throes horrible to contemplate. From the embattled floor Hugh’s eyes lifted to the wall of the cave, which was perhaps a hundred feet deep but which did not, at that, stretch beyond the rays of the sun. And when his eyes had fallen on the rear wall, he gave a low exclamation and forgot the tragic story at his feet as though it did not exist.
At the rear of the cave, ten feet above the floor, was a projecting mass of stone that the merciless red light of the sun pricked out in a horror of detail that instantly accounted for Red Wolf’s tale of fear and mystery. A gigantic bony head—the head of a horned toad magnified to the proportions of an elephant—a head with gaping, sagging lower jaw, armored with enormous teeth, with horned snout lifted as if it sniffed perpetually after an ever present enemy, with cavernous eye sockets, that glowered with horrible simulation of vision upon the scene of ancient carnage.
Hugh paused beneath the terrible skull long enough to observe the broken remains of an ancient altar that lay on the floor, then with infinite care he clambered up to examine the marvelous discovery. After a few moments of ecstatic exploration, he went back to fetch the pick. With infinite care he then prospected the entire rear wall of the cave and in a short time had satisfied himself that just beneath the surface of the rock lay the remains of a dinosaur whose rarity and perfection surpassed any of his previous discoveries. Conscious finally of the increasing cold as the sun deserted the cave, he returned to the entrance and knotted the rope under his arms. Then only did he note that a skeleton, clad in an old overcoat, sat crouched within the shadow of the opening.
He knelt hastily, and with great care examined the clothing. His face was troubled when he had finished, and he stood for a time in anxious thought before shouting to Fred and Red Wolf to pull him up. He was entirely absent-minded as he spiraled upward and made the difficult scramble over the edge quite automatically.
“My Gawd, Hughie,” shouted Fred, when the young man finally stood panting beside him, “I hope you discovered free gold to pay for the scare you give me and Red Wolf.”
“It’s a wonder, Fred!” said Hugh, seriously. “A wonder! A triceratops, without a doubt.”
“I suppose that means something to you!” snorted Fred. “How about me and the Injun?”
Hugh turned to Red Wolf“You were right, old man. It’s the same kind of a stone devil that we lost under the slide, only a good deal bigger and with a perfect skull, which the other didn’t have. We’ll get him out of there, all right.”
Red Wolf scratched his head, thoughtfully. “You see many dead Injuns down there? You see anything else?”
“How do you mean, anything else?” demanded Hugh quickly. The Indian shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
“What’s the idea?” asked Fred, suspiciously.
“The idea is,” replied Hugh, “that it’s not going to be so hard to get the specimen exhumed, but that it is going to be the very devil to get him out of the cave. I believe that the best way will be to lower the cases down to the river.
Fred nodded. “All right, only you can’t get a boat up Roaring Chief river in the winter.”
“I know,” agreed Hugh. “But I have a feeling that if I don’t get that old brute out now, I won’t get him out at all.”
“What’s the matter? Got bitten by the bad medicine idea?”
Hugh laughed. “Maybe! Anyhow, I’m going to get at the preliminary work this afternoon. I’ll have something to eat, then I’ll go down again and you folks can lower the packing cases and the rest of the materials to me.”
“What’s the matter with me?” demanded Fred. “Don’t I qualify as a bone miner any more?”
“You’ll think you do tomorrow morning when we begin to get that head out,” replied Hugh. “We’ll never get Red Wolf within a mile of it.”
“I ain’t just drooling to get at it myself,” said Fred, “but I aim to keep step with you in nerve if not in brains. All I complain about is that your idea of what’s free gold and mine don’t hitch.” He gave Hugh a grin that was not without admiring affection, and began preparations for dinner.
They made short work of the meal and were at work unloading the freight wagon when a rider came casually into the camp.
“Am I too late for grub?” he cried.
Hugh gave a welcoming shout. “Uncle Bookie!” A tall old man slid from his horse and clasped the young man in a shameless embrace. Even when he had freed Hugh from the bear hug, Bookie stood with his hand on his foster nephew’s shoulder while he grinned at Fred and Red Wolf.
“I hoped it wouldn’t snow till I picked up the smoke of the sheep wagon,” he said. “What happened at the other camp?”
“A slide that ruined two months’ work,” replied Hugh. “Anything wrong at Fort Sioux, Uncle Bookie?”
“There certainly is. A certain fool geologist forgot to come home for Christmas.”
“By Jove!” cried Hugh, “this is Christmas Eve!”
“Wonderful memory you always did have, Hughie,” said Bookie.
Fred joined in Hugh’s laughter, adding, “I’ll heat that kettle of stew. Look to your saddle, stranger.”
Hugh nodded to the Indian. “Look to the saddle, Red Wolf, will you? Come into the wagon, Uncle Bookie. I’ve just made the discovery of my life. Some Christmas gift, I’ll say.”
The older man followed Hugh and rested himself on the edge of the lower bunk with a sigh, probably of pleasure, for he was smiling at Hugh as he did so.
John Haverford Smith, known to all Wyoming as Bookie Smith, was very thin and very brown, with a small, bald head topping a long whip-cord neck. He had deep brown eyes set far apart, eyes that were full of light but that told no tales on Bookie. If, as Hugh often thought, the old man’s life had been one of mental hunger, his eyes did not say so. If life’s lonely, heart-breaking, mirth-provoking pageant had left him sterile, his fine brown eyes did not say so. They were merely the casements from which his lonely and sensitive soul gazed at the world. For the rest, his face was clean shaven and austere of line, his hands were long and startlingly white, the hands of the perpetually gloved rider. He chewed tobacco, always swallowing the juice.
He unbuttoned his mackinaw, showing a black coat buttoned over a blue flannel shirt, renewed his quid, then said:
“How’d you come to make camp just here, Hughie?”
“Well, I was so devilishly disappointed yesterday over the loss of the specimen that old Red Wolf unfolded a story about a stone devil that he thought a white man could drive out of a certain mysterious cave, hereabouts. He declared he could show it to me, and, by jove, the old boy made good. Lord, Uncle Bookie, there’s a triceratops down there that will make the mouths water of several museums I know.”
Bookie chewed thoughtfully, then pulled off his mackinaw and put a spurred foot up on the hearth to dry. “Take off that cap, Hughie, and let me have a square look at you. Who cut your hair?”
“Fred took a hand at it the other day.” Hugh grinned and tossed his cap into the upper bunk. His close cropped head thus displayed was of curiously noble proportions.
“There you are!” said Bookie “Your head should have made something besides a bone digger of you, Hughie! But Lord God, why should an old failure like me croak about that!”
A little glint of irritation showed for a moment in Hugh’s eyes, but it was replaced by a glance of sympathy as he perceived an unwonted expression of weariness, almost of weakness, on Bookie’s thin lips.
“Fred,” Hugh turned suddenly to the old miner, “I don’t believe we’ll begin the job this afternoon, seeing that we have company and it’s Christmas Eve. Suppose you and Red Wolf try your luck at antelope. We ought to have a real dinner tomorrow.”
Fred poured a cupful of melted snow into the coffee pot and smiled.
“Best idea you’ve had in two months, Hughie. Will you dish this here mess for Bookie?”
Hugh nodded and Fred slammed out of the wagon.
“Thanks, Hughie,” said Bookie. “It isn’t very often I get a chance for a real talk with you.”
Hugh served the old man’s meal with the deftness of hand characteristic of him before he asked, “Was there something particular on your mind, Uncle Bookie?”
“I suppose there is,” replied Bookie, “though I didn’t fully realize it till I got here. I’m getting old, Hughie, and you are all I have, and I miss you.”
Hugh, perched on the bunk edge while his uncle ate, nodded understanding. “And you are all I have, too, Uncle Bookie.”
“You oughtn’t to eliminate Jessie that way, Hughie,” said Bookie.
Hugh’s clear gray eyes looked unblinkingly into Bookie’s. “You and I don’t have to make pretenses about Jessie, do we? If I must bluff the rest of the world, I can be honest with you, can’t I?”
“Jessie is all right. She just isn’t your kind, that’s all. I told you before you married her that you’d outgrow her before you were twenty-five,” protested Bookie.
“Well,” Hugh’s low voice was stern, “it’s come as you said and I’m paying the bill in loneliness, but I haven’t complained except when Jess and her mother go after me too hard about my work.”
“Everybody over thirty is lonely,” said Bookie, “and some younger than that Jessie is lonely—or I miss my guess.”
“Is it Jessie that you wanted to talk to me about?” asked Hugh, skeptically
“Only incidentally,” Bookie answered after a long pause, during which he finished his meal and Hugh filled and half smoked a pipe. “Only incidentally. I’m getting old, Hughie I live in the past. It’s a sure sign.”
Hugh packed the dishes into the dish-pan and slung the table against the wall. Then he stretched himself on the bench thus exposed and nodded toward the lower bunk.
“Ease yourself over there, Uncle Bookie, and get it all off your chest.”
Bookie smiled. “I wish it was as simple as that, boy—” He chewed for several minutes. “I’ve had an interesting life, Hugh, a lot more interesting than most folks, chuck full of adventure, and yet, sitting there alone in the old book store night after night, do you know what I think about? The woman I didn’t marry—the son I didn’t have—the good I didn’t do.”
He paused and Hugh eyed him wistfully. “You might be cataloging my own losses, Uncle Bookie!”
“As a matter of fact, Hughie, you are so wrapped up in your work that you don’t look on those things as losses but as assets. Come now, isn’t that true? And you are looking at me sadly out of pure love and sympathy for me. Eh?”
Hugh laughed “Right, Uncle Bookie! Lord, I wouldn’t give up my work for anything on earth.”
“Don’t make wild boasts, boy. Life’s just begun for you— Don’t fix yourself so that every gol darned holiday that comes along, especially Christmas, makes you feel like an empty gourd Especially Christmas.”
“By jove, Uncle Bookie, don’t tell me an old gun-notcher like you is getting sentimental!”
“Exactly! I’m getting sentimental. Every human being has to pay toll sometime in the shape of sentimentality. Most folks are lucky enough to get through it while they’re young But I stalled it off and now I have to pay. Take this matter of Christmas. Christmas isn’t a religious festival. It’s a state of mind. It’s a yearly return to the basic principles on which civilization has covered even the small amount of ground it’s covered so far. Hughie, do you remember the Christmases we used to have on the ranch before your mother died?”
Hugh nodded.
“Do you remember the last one while your father still lived?”
Hugh shook his head “No I was only six. But I was ten when other went.”
“Tell me some of the things you remember, boy.”
Hugh, wondering much as to what was passing in his foster uncle’s mind, complied readily enough, speaking carefully as he turned back into his childhood.
“I remember the tree, of course, and you and mother full of secrets for days beforehand. I recall very clearly the feeling of—of—magic!—in the air I wonder what gave me that? Jove, I can get it now if I let my mind dwell on it!”
He closed his eyes and slipped back into a past which he had not entered for years His tall, gray-eyed mother—the tree—the lights—the gifts—the candle in the window—stars, myriads of stars—and, every Christmas, himself and his mother walking slowly out beyond the corrals to be alone with the star of the east. She had been a deeply religious woman, his tall, gray-eyed mother, and though Hugh had drifted far from her teachings, he never was to forget them. So now he heard her again repeating to the little boy the old, old story—felt again the nearness to a great glory and a great tragedy—sensed his mother’s passionate love for him and his for her—sensed her over whelming desire for him to achieve something as stupendous as that other mother had desired for that other and deeply tragic child—and he perceived again in the boy of seven that strange regret which had grown in him with the years, a regret based on the understanding that life had expended endless glories which he could never know, that those glories were almost within hand touch, if one only could believe enough—if only
Hugh sighed. “I can’t put much of it into words, Uncle Bookie. Most of it lay between mother and me.”
“You can’t recall that last Christmas Eve and your mother and what she said?”
“O that!” Hugh stirred restlessly. “She died the next day. Don’t make me go into that. I had to shut it out of my mind years ago. It broke my heart.”
“I know But for once, Hughie—for me. What did she say?”
Hugh laid his pipe down, and sat up slowly. His beautiful mouth twisted with old pain. “She said, ‘Hughie, be big enough to make up for your father’s failure, and mine and Uncle Bookie’s.’” He wiped the moisture from his lips. “Why are you doing this to me, Uncle Bookie?”
There was satisfaction mingled with sympathy in the old man’s voice. “I had to see whether you’d gone entirely cold, Hughie. But you haven’t, thank God!”
Hugh’s lips stiffened. “I thought you understood me better than this, Uncle Bookie.”
“I understand you better than any one else does, Hughie, and I’m convinced that fossils aren’t going to satisfy you as you grow into middle age. You ought to mix more with folks and read more books.”
Hugh’s long chin set till his jaw showed white beneath his ears. It was an old sore and even Bookie could not touch it with impunity. The older man realized this and his voice was very gentle as he went on.
“Do you think fossil hunting is big enough to make up for your father’s failure and mine? I won’t admit that your mother failed. She was a saint.”
“I think it would be,” replied Hugh, stoutly. “But I don’t admit that you’re a failure.”
“I am a failure. I had a good brain and I never used more than a quarter of it. I was satisfied to play smarty out here with a gun when I might have been doing my share toward making Wyoming as big as her plains.”
“I thought the book store was the dream of your life!” exclaimed Hugh.
“It was, but I didn’t do the things with it I planned to do.”
“Why not?” Hugh’s voice was full of surprise.
“I had missed the thing that makes a man fight to live up to his dreams—the real love of a real woman.”
“I’m living up to my dreams without that,” said Hugh, shortly.
“Maybe your dreams don’t amount to much,” returned the old man.
Hugh flushed, but said nothing.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Hughie, God knows!” cried Bookie, sitting erect suddenly. “You are the son I never had and I yearn over you as you can’t understand. You are going through life blind to all the enormous possibilities in you, and it seems as if it would kill me, sitting alone there in The Lariat”
Hugh reached over to put a finely cut, strong hand on Bookie’s knee. “Is The Lariat only a book shop to you, after all, Uncle Bookie? We all thought it was a lot more.”
“God!” groaned the old man.
Hugh let his hand remain where he had laid it while he said, sadly, “I’m sorry I’m a disappointment to you, Uncle Bookie. I wish I could make you see the enormous possibilities of my profession.”
“I’m not doubting those possibilities for a moment. But that isn’t saying it brings out your best powers, is it?”
For a moment there was no sound save the crackling of the cedar knots in the little stove. Then Hugh said slowly:
“Uncle Bookie, since I married Jessie, you and she and her mother have been pressing me to go into some work that will bring out my best powers! And I’ve been feeling resentful, because I believe that all there is in me is going into my profession. I simply don’t understand on what you base all this day dreaming. What started it, anyhow?”
“You mean,” Bookie gazed at his foster child wonderingly, “that you don’t realize that you are different from the run of men?”
“Different only in that the people who should know me best are perpetually dissatisfied with me, and that I feel badgered all the time I’m at home. I don’t think the run of men live under those conditions. I don’t think I’m naturally irritable.” He smiled wistfully at his uncle.
“No, you are not naturally so. Until lately you were the best controlled youngster I ever knew.” Bookie pulled at his pipe thoughtfully. “It never occurred to me that you didn’t recognize your own power. Let me think a moment.” He stared at the rippling canvas over his head. “Your father was a remarkable man. If he hadn’t had such rotten bad health he’d have been heard from in this state. He was the best engineer I ever knew and a fine executive. I mean that he could lay out a big irrigation scheme and get it built better and quicker than any engineer in the northwest. He had a natural instinct for handling men and a fine scientific mind. You don’t often see the two together Of course, you know all this, but evidently you haven’t connected it with the ability you show in your own work”
Hugh shook his head and Bookie went on.
“Your father had a big brain, but it was your mother who had the personality. I don’t suppose any one in the world has ever really defined charm. She had it to a remarkable degree. Yet I can’t describe it to you! Loveliness of character? Lots of people have it and nobody cares about them. Cleverness? She was not clever. She was too big to be that. Intellectual? Yes, she was intellectual, but a person can be intellectual and repellent at the same time. She— O I can’t describe it! But people liked to be with her. They liked to do what she wanted them to. And they liked to know what she thought about things. Her greatest gift was just that. Making people see things as she saw them.”
“I remember that,” said Hugh, quickly. “She handled me as no one else could.”
“Yes,” replied Bookie. “After she died and I took you over, of course. I was interested in seeing what you’d inherited from each of them. Your interest in geology was easily accounted for. And it looked during your teens, as if you’d inherited your mother’s character. I remember when you were about fourteen, I sent you up in the wild horse country with half-a-dozen riders to bring in some mares that were running near Big Fang. Recall it?”
“Jove, yes! We roped that little mare Sissy you bred to Black Maverick She was a beauty.”
Bookie grunted. “I thought that was about what you’d remember! What has remained in my mind is this. That gang of riders I grubstaked planned to leave the pick of the horses they ran down, up in that old Indian corral at the foot of Big Fang, for themselves. So, to deceive you, they lamed your horse and left you in camp with the cook.”
“O I do remember now!” exclaimed Hugh “I got the cook to tell me who’d kicked my horse, and when the men came in that night I jumped Red Pete and tried my best to lick him. He sure gave me a trouncing!”
“How’d you get the cook to tell you?” asked Bookie, watching Hugh intently.
“O I don’t recall that! He just told,” replied Hugh vaguely. “I haven’t forgiven Red Pete yet for kicking my horse.”
“Well, what happened after he’d licked you?”
“I think I told them what I thought of guys that would do what they’d done to my pony. I remember standing by the fire with a bloody nose and telling them what a rotten outfit they were, and what that little old horse meant to me and a lot of other things. Anyhow, they all got the point, for they made Red Pete give me his best mount.”
“Is that all?” demanded Bookie
“That’s all that I remember just now.”
“Old Snorty Williams was the cook. He told me that you made those hard-faced horse thieves break up like May ice in the Roaring Chief. And that they came to you for orders during the rest of the hunt. Remember?”
Hugh smoked thoughtfully. “I don’t know as they came to me for orders because of myself I was your representative.”
Again Bookie grunted. “But they didn’t do so until after the fight with Red Pete and after you’d made them see the thing as you saw it.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Hugh. “I certainly would like to meet up with Red Pete again.”
“I was much impressed by that incident,” Bookie went on, “and I could cite a dozen more of the same kind that occurred before you went to college. You were all father in your craze for fossil hunting, but you had so much of your mother’s charm that—that—Hughie, sometimes I couldn’t bear to be with you. But after you got into college, the scientific side of you began to dominate. When you began to go with Jessie, I used to talk to her about it. I didn’t like to see you shut yourself off from the other students and give all your time to fossils. So it’s really my fault, I suppose, that Jessie has taken the attitude toward you that she has, Hughie. I can’t bear to see you getting more and more unsociable and irritable like your father and losing that charm and power over others that was your mother’s.”
“Am I getting to be so?” asked Hugh. Then, without waiting for a reply, he went on, “You’ve no idea how Jessie and her mother nag me, Uncle Bookie.”
“And you’ve no idea how you growl at them,” replied his uncle. “Somehow we’re all gone wrong.”
“I’ll try to behave myself,” said Hugh, contritely. “I guess I have let my resentment show too much. But, Uncle Bookie, if I’m such a wonder at influencing people, why haven’t I been able to show you and Jessie and her mother how big paleontology is?”
“Because,” returned Bookie quickly, “fine as it is, it’s not as fine as your possibilities, and because you’ve never really tried to convert us. Lord! Lord! I’ve come to the conclusion that modesty and a single interest are the worst combination a man can have. Besides obstinacy,” he added, glancing at the set of Hugh’s long jaw.
Hugh smiled, then added soberly, “I do want to please you, Uncle Bookie. If I become very great in my work, won’t that satisfy you?”
“No,” replied Bookie, “because it will demand only a part of your powers.”
Hugh stared at the older man in a puzzled, half pleading sort of way, then, with an obviously determined manner, he changed the subject.
“Uncle Bookie, down in the cave below us, this morning, I found a skeleton wearing a suit of clothes. In the pocket of the overcoat was an envelope addressed to Jimmie Duncan.”
Bookie slowly reached into his hip pocket, took a careful bite of tobacco and after reinserting the remainder of the plug turned on his back again.
“I left Jimmie down there twenty-three years ago this Christmas.”
“Did you put a notch on your gun, Uncle Bookie?”
“You can bet I did. A deep one!”
“Why, Uncle Bookie?”
“Because he was a skunk.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
“I’ll try. I loved your mother from the time she came out here with your poor one-lunged dad. He knew it, and before he died he tried to get her to promise she’d marry me. But she didn’t love anybody but him and never did, and though she stayed on for five years after his death as my housekeeper, she never would be any more to me than a pal—God bless her, Hughie! She was a beautiful soul—beautiful! Jimmie Duncan was a cattle runner in those days, and he and his gang used the river section of this tract for running their herds. In those times, he wasn’t considered so disrespectable and once in a while he took a meal up at my ranch. He went plumb, raving crazy over your mother. I warned him off. She sure did hate him, but he got to coming back when I’d be in Fort Sioux On Christmas Eve, twenty-three years ago, I came back to find her standing him off with a gun”
Bookie paused and Hugh observed that the old man’s fingers were trembling.
“I’m not going into details. They still upset me. But he got away from me and I tracked him here, to this very spot. We took several pot shots at each other. Then, during the night, a half-breed helped him down into that cave, and afterward double-crossed him and lowered me down. I didn’t trouble to bury the skunk. Naturally I never told anything about it, for your mother’s sake. Curiously enough, the half-breed was killed the next day. They said he slipped over the canyon. I took over the Old Sioux Tract and tried to give it to your mother. When she wouldn’t have it, I swore no one should ever use it if she wouldn’t. And so far I’ve kept my word. You’ve never found a dinosaur on it before, have you, Hughie?”
“No, but I have an idea it may prove to be a great fossil field. You aren’t going to object to my prospecting it, are you, Uncle Bookie?”
The old man answered with unexpected obstinacy. “I don’t aim to break my word during my lifetime, Hughie.”
“But you aren’t going to refuse to let me get that triceratops out!” cried Hugh, in sudden alarm.
“Yes, I think I shall. It can’t mean as much pleasure to you as it does pain to me. You let Jimmie Duncan’s grave alone.”
“O but here, Uncle Bookie! I’ll take that skunk’s bones and clothes and burn them. I wish I could add insult and ignominy to them, too.” Hugh paused as the significance of that generation-old killing swept over him. Then he said, “After all, he didn’t actually harm mother, and I think she’d be glad to have me bring something memorable out of that cave.” He paused once more as a picture of his mother’s Christmas face beneath the winter stars rose before his eyes. “And on Christmas Eve, too! What a hell’s spawn he was. Where was I, Uncle Bookie?”
“In bed and asleep,” replied the old man, watching his foster nephew, intently.
“I was only seven,” said Hugh, apologetically. “I shall kick his bones into the river, tomorrow,” a sudden passion showing in his voice that brought an answering gleam into Bookie’s brown eyes. Again Hugh’s jaw gleamed white beneath the ears. “Let me clean the cave up, Uncle Bookie. She’d want me to.”
“I can’t, Hughie. I thought maybe I could, but it won’t work. She wouldn’t take the Tract from me. It was the only cruel thing she ever did. She shan’t take it from you, by God!”
Hugh poked the fire. “Uncle Bookie,” he said, “I’m sorry to go against you, but as a paleontologist I’ve got no right to leave that dinosaur down there to chance. I’ll get it out and then I’ll-go down into Lost Basin Country.”
“Well, let’s not debate the matter on Christmas Eve, Hughie,” the old man sighed. “I’m going back home tomorrow and of course you can do what you please.”
“Yes, let’s leave it that way,” agreed Hugh, eagerly.
“Your work must come first, eh?” asked Bookie, slowly, “before any human weakness or relationship?”
Hugh answered with sudden vehemence. “Yes, by jove, and it always shall!”
Then he opened the door and went out into the bitter dusk. When he returned his Uncle Bookie had gone to bed.
Red Wolf brought in an antelope that night. He and Fred dressed it before they climbed into the upper bunk and all night long a coyote pack fought and snarled over the hide and offal which the two hunters deposited far up the draw. Hugh slept restlessly and woke the next morning full of contrition over the turn his conversation with Bookie had taken.
Bookie, however, was very cheerful. He followed the men about the camp, watching their preparations for the next day’s work, making no comments whatever. At noon, over the venison dinner, he talked with Red Wolf about old trapping days.
“You Sioux haven’t the nerve you used to have,” gibed the old man. “In the old days we could rely on you for keeping us supplied with bear skins. Now almost all the bear skins are brought in by the dudes up on my ranch.”
Red Wolf grinned. “Injuns afraid. That’s right! You remember when Hugh little boy, how he save Red Wolf’s life from brown bear?”
Bookie laughed.
“What’s the story?” asked Fred.
“You tell ’em, Bookie,” said the old Sioux.
“Not much of a story,” Bookie smiled reminiscently. “Hughie was about ten and always boasting about the big game he’d get if I’d only let him use my .44 rifle. He was especially loud-mouthed about his bear hunting.”
“O I remember that!” exclaimed Hugh. “It was when Red Wolf was trapping up on the Reserve back of the ranch. I followed him on one of his trips when he made the round of his traps. Of course, I lost him after the first mile or two. But in a thick growth of cedar I saw a brown bear as big as an elephant.
“I had been toting the forbidden .44. But it was very heavy for a ten-year-old and I’d hidden it about a quarter of a mile back. I was shaking like a leaf, but I gathered my courage and ran for the gun. When I got back, there was the bear, still sitting on his haunches, talking and growling to himself. So I began to crawl up on him It took me a long, long time to encourage myself to get within easy shot of him. He sure was an ugly brute. His whole attention was concentrated on something I couldn’t see through the underbrush, until I was within about a hundred feet of him. Then I saw that it was Red Wolf! Yes, sir, Red Wolf, apparently hypnotized by horror, for he was crouched with his back against a tree, not moving a muscle.
“I let out a yell and began shooting the .44. I put six shots into the bear before he dropped. Then I crawled up to him Red Wolf sat grinning at me.
“‘Well, I saved your life,’ I howled.
“Red Wolf nodded and I stood up and, almost bursting with pride, looked at my bear. Fred, his hind leg was in a trap! Red Wolf had just been sitting there looking him over before shooting him. And I had ruined a fine pelt.”
Fred chuckled, then said: “You should never have told on the kid, Red Wolf.”
“He didn’t,” said Bookie “Hugh told on himself. Say, Red Wolf, have you still got that pelt?”
“Yes. Couldn’t sell ’em.”
“I’ll trade you something for it. What do you say? Is there any hair left on it?”
“Some,” replied the Sioux. “No will swap. Keep ’em on bed, think ’bout little boy Hughie.”
“Got any decent bead work then?” asked Bookie “I can always live in hopes, I suppose, that I’ll find some of the fine old work.”
“Maybe,” Red Wolf shook his head. “You got any books heap fine pictures in ’em?”
“You can see when you come in from this job. How long do you think it will take you, Hughie?”
“Until March, I guess”
The old man nodded, knocked the ashes from his pipe and pulled on his mackinaw. “I must get started. Any message for Jessie?”
“Just that I’m well. Fred will be in once in a while for supplies. I’ll send the teams down in a day or so, to remain until I’m ready to come out. I’m running out of horse feed.”
“How much money will you make out of that bird, Hughie?” asked Bookie, unexpectedly.
“If I break even I’ll be lucky,” replied Hugh, cheerfully. “I won’t even make wages like Red Wolf and Fred!”
Bookie grunted and said good-by
On the day after Christmas, in spite of a driving snow, Hugh began work on the exhuming of the triceratops. He insisted upon being lowered first to receive the impedimenta required in the delicate and highly technical business of uncovering the Stone Devil.
It was bitter cold and dusky within the cave. Hugh’s first act was to rip out some of the ancient cedar posts with which a portion of the walls were shored and to start a fire in the crude stone fireplace which still leaned crazily against a crevice to the left of the doorway. This done, he stood in the fire glow, arms folded, staring at the skeleton in the overcoat. Then a sudden fury swept over him and with a swift movement of his foot he thrust the ghastly remains of Jimmie Duncan into the roaring flames. An hour later he shouted up to his helpers to lower the first box.
Red Wolf had declined to come down, and Hugh, knowing the old man’s reasons, did not urge him, much as he needed the help of a third man.
The cave was very dry and there had been little weathering of the dinosaur. Nevertheless, it took all of Hugh’s knowledge and skill of hand, combined with Fred’s not to be despised facility in the handling of the pick and shovel, to work the triceratops out of his long resting place. Toward the last, when it would have seemed impossible to the lay eye to save a crumbling rib or the strange armor of the neck, the pick was abandoned and the two men, hands stiffened with the cold, worked with awl and brush, until the whole terrible length of the monster had been perfectly exhumed. Then each fossil bone must be saturated with mucilage and wrapped with burlap strips, dipped in plaster of Paris, before being packed carefully into boxes and crates.
Hugh worked as he always did over a specimen, in a frenzy of enthusiasm. He never mentioned the biting cold, the ghastly trip night and morning dangling from the twisting rope over the far black depths of the river. Indeed, he did not think of these things. But he did note with never-ending pleasure the drama of the picture—the fire light leaping on the red walls, the awful heaps of dead men’s bones, mingled with the tiny bones of children, the ancient pottery—here was the record of a glory that he could rescue from the jealous past. The present, with its discomforts, its inhibitions, didn’t exist for him.