Читать книгу The Land of Strong Men (Western Novel) - Western Novel - Страница 11

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Jean arrived on the next boat three days later, with a tragic tale of missed connections. It seemed to Angus that the few months of absence had made quite a difference. She seemed, in fact, almost a young lady, even to his brotherly eye.

But however she had changed she had not lost her grip on practical things, and when she began to look around the house Angus and Turkey found that their trouble in cleaning up had been wasted. For Jean dug into corners, and under and behind things where, as Turkey said, nobody but a girl would ever think of looking; and in such obscure and out-of-the-way places she found some dirt, some articles discarded or lost, and the more or less permanent abode of Tom and Matilda.

Tom and Matilda were mice, which had become thoroughly tame and domesticated. In the evenings Rennie fed them oatmeal and scraps of cheese, chuckling to see them sit up on their hunkers and polish their whiskers and wink their beady, little eyes, and all hands had united in keeping the cats out. Everybody had regarded Tom and Matilda as good citizens; and they had developed a simple and touching trust in mankind. But Jean broke up their home ruthlessly, with exclamations of disgust; and commandeering all the men for a day, turned the house inside out, beat, swept, washed and scrubbed; and then put everything back again. She professed to see a great difference, but nobody else agreed with her.

"The only difference I see," said Turkey, "is that I don't know where to find a darn thing."

"Well, you won't find it on the floor, or under a heap of rubbish six months old," Jean told him.

"Oh, all right," Turkey grumbled. "Now you've got all our things mixed up maybe you'll be satisfied."

Jean appealed to Angus, who agreed with Turkey. Whereat Jean sniffed and left them to their opinions.

Angus was a little apprehensive of his first meeting Blake French, but to his relief the latter chose to ignore what had occurred. Rather to his surprise Kathleen rode over to call on Jean, and the two girls struck up a certain friendship. Thus Angus saw more of Kathleen and her people than he had ever done before, including the head of the family, Godfrey French himself.

Godfrey French, though well on in years, was still erect and spare. He had a cold, blue eye, much like Gavin's, but now a trifle weary, and a slightly bent cynical mouth beneath a white moustach. He was invariably courteous and dignified, and whatever might be said of his sons, there was no doubt that the father possessed the ingrained manner of a gentleman. Yet Angus did not like him, and he thought that old French had little or no use for him. Somehow, French put him in mind of a gray-muzzled old fox.

One day in mid-summer as Angus sat in the shade of the workshop mending a broken harness, old Paul Sam on his single-footing pony drew up at the door.

"'Al-lo!" he greeted.

"Hello, Paul Sam," Angus returned. "You feel skookum to-day?"

"Skookum, me," the Indian replied. "Skookum, you?"

"Skookum, me," Angus told him.

The old man got off his pony, sat down on an empty box, and drew out an old buckskin, bead-worked fire-bag. From this he produced a stone pipe bowl and a reed stem. Fitting the two together he filled the bowl and smoked.

This, Angus knew, was diplomacy. Whatever the Indian had come for, not a word concerning it would he say till he had had his smoke. Then it would probably be unimportant. So Angus waited in silence, and Paul Sam smoked in silence. Finally the latter tapped out and unjointed his pipe and put it away in his fire-bag.

"Me got cooley kuitan," he announced.

"Cooley" is apparently a corruption of the French word "courir," to run. "Kuitan" is a horse. Hence a "cooley kuitan" in Chinook signifies a race horse.

Angus shook his head. He knew very well what Sam Paul intended doing with this race horse. There was a local race meet each year, in connection with the local fair. The race meet outsized the fair, dwarfed it in interest. It drew tin horns and sure-thing gamblers as fresh meat draws flies. These gentry ran various games, open when they could and under cover when they could not. Then there were men with a seasoned old ringer under a new name, or a couple of skates with which to pull off a faked match race. There were various races, but the big event was a mile for horses locally owned. There was some excellent stock in the country, and great rivalry developed.

In this race each year the Indians had entered some alleged running horse and backed it gamely. But each year they lost, their horses being neither trained nor ridden properly, and being completely outclassed as well; for as a rule they were merely good saddle cayuses and overweighted at that. This year French's horse, a beautiful, bright bay named Flambeau, seemed likely to win. Angus had seen him and admired him. Therefore he shook his head.

"You only think you've got a cooley kuitan," he said. "Keep out of that race, Paul Sam. You'll only lose money."

"Him good," the Indian insisted. "S'pose him get good rider him win. Injun boy no good to ride. Injun boy all right in Injun race; no good in white man's race."

"That's true enough," Angus agreed. "Injun boy don't kumtux the game. Well, what about it?"

"Mebbe-so you catch white boy to ride um?" Paul Sam suggested.

"Do you mean Turkey?" Angus queried.

"Ha-a-lo," Paul Sam negatived. "White boy, all same ride white man's horse."

"A jockey! Where would I get you a jockey?"

But that detail was none of Paul Sam's business.

"You catch um jock!" he said hopefully.

"But I don't know where to get one. A jockey would cost money, and you wouldn't win, anyway. You Injuns start a horse every year, and you never have one that has a lookin. You'd better get the idea out of your head."

But an idea once implanted in an Indian's head is apt to stay. Paul Sam grinned complacently.

"Me got dam' good cooley kuitan. Me kumtux kuitan."

He told Angus the history of his horse, as he knew it. Stripped of details, it amounted to this: Some five years before a fine English mare which had been the property of a deceased remittance man, had been auctioned off. She was in foal, and the colt in due course had been sold, and in some obscure and involved cattle deal had become the property of Paul Sam, who had let him run with his cayuses. When he broke him to the saddle he found him remarkably fast. Being a real fox, he said nothing about the colt's turn of speed, but bided his time. Now, in his opinion, he could make a killing and spoil the Egyptian, alias the white man, if only the colt were properly trained and ridden. He applied to Angus for help, as being the son of his tillikum, Adam Mackay. He invited him out to inspect the horse.

Angus went and took Dave Rennie. The horse which Paul Sam led forth for inspection was a big, slashing four-year-old, with a good head, an honest eye, deep chest and clean, flat limbs. Every line of him told of power and endurance; and to the eye which could translate power into terms of speed, of the latter as well. Rennie whistled softly.

"He looks to me like he had real blood in him. He's a weight carrier. English hunting stock, I sh'd say. Some of 'em can run, all right. If the mare was in foal when she was brought out, I wouldn't wonder if this boy's sire was real class. He looks it." The big horse reached out a twitching muzzle to investigate. Rennie stroked the velvet nose. "Kind as a kitten, too. He seems to have the build, but that don't say he can run."

"Him run," Paul Sam affirmed. "You ride him."

He cinched an old stock saddle on the chestnut, and Rennie mounted. He cantered easily across the flat and back.

"He's easy as an old rocker and light as a driftin' cloud," he said. "The bit worries him, though. He needs rubber. You get on him, and see what a real horse feels like."

Angus lengthened the stirrups and swung up. As soon as he felt the motion he knew he was astride a wondrous piece of mechanism. The undulating lift of the big chestnut was as easy and effortless and sustained as a smooth, rolling swell. Of his own accord the horse quickened his pace from the easy sling of the canter to a long, stretching, hand-gallop, drawing great lungfuls of air, shaking his head, rejoicing in his own motion, glad to be doing the work he was fitted for. At the end of the little flat Angus pulled up and turned. Rennie's distant shout came faintly:

"Let him come!"

Breathing the horse for a moment, Angus loosed him from the canter to the gallop and then, as he felt the coil and uncoil of the splendid muscles, and the swell and quiver of the body, and the increasing reach and stretch of the ever-quickening stride, he let him run.

All his life Angus had ridden ponies, cayuses, but now he had a new experience. The big chestnut, as he was given his head, made half a dozen great bounds and then, steadying himself, he stretched his neck, his body seemed to sink and straighten, and with muzzle almost in line with his ears he began to put forth the speed that was in him. The rapid drum of his hoofs quickened to a roar; the wind sang in Angus' ears; the figures of Paul and Sam and Rennie seemed to come toward him, and he shot past them and gradually eased the willing horse to canter and walk.

"Him cooley kuitan, hey?" Paul Sam grinned. "You catch um jock?"

"But I don't know where to get one," Angus replied.

"Well," said Rennie, "I don't know where to get no regular jockey, but I know an old has-been that used to ride twenty years ago, before he got smashed up. I dunno 's he'd ride now, in a race, but he could put the horse in shape. He's got a fruit and chicken ranch somewheres on the coast. Me and him was kids together, and he might come if I asked him. Only he wouldn't do it for nothing."

"You catch um," said Paul Sam. "Me pay um. Mebbe-so me win hiyu dolla!"