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Bill Kennedy, he always gits kinda happy when he's had one or two." There was laughter in the crowd. Two or three voices were heard muttering together, and other laughs followed. Some one produced a bottle and offered the pugnacious one a drink. Lance let him go with a contemptuous laugh and went to where the Devil's Tooth men now stood bunched close together, their backs to the chuck-wagon.
Two others snaked in wood for the chuck-wagon fire. Still another drove long stakes in the shape of a hollow square, stretching a single rope from one to the next and fashioning a frail rope corral.
The Circle L had a dozen line camps little adobe cabins scattered over the range, occupied during the winter by Circle L cowboys whose duty it was to guard the cattle against the aggressions of timber wolves, rustlers, cold, and starvation. For two days the chuck-wagon had been sent rattling to the various line camps, stocking them with supplies against the winter.
Beside the schoolhouse, with two lanterns shedding a yellow glow on his thin, sandy hair, Riley, at the chuck-wagon, arranged doughnuts, sandwiches, pies and cakes to his liking, wiped his red hands frequently on his clean flour-sack apron, and held carefully unprofane conversation with the women who came fluttering over to him, their arms burdened. "No, mom, sorry!
Louis, call around and see me at the Panhandle headquarters. Don't send in any card by a nigger; walk right in. I might give you some other pointers, but you couldn't appreciate them. You'll more than likely be driving a chuck-wagon in a few years."
The smaller section, escorted by five disgruntled Circle L cowboys, moved slowly southward, while the main herd headed eastward, flanked at the sides by grim-faced Circle L riders; at the rear by a number of others and by Lawler, Blackburn; the "chuck-wagon" driven by the cook a portly, solemn-visaged man of forty with a thin, complaining voice; the "hoodlum" wagon, equipped with bedding and a meager stock of medicines and supplies for emergencies driven by a slender, fiercely mustached man jocosely referred to as "Doc;" and a dozen horses of the remuda, in charge of the horse-wrangler and an assistant.
They delight in the game as much as a polo-pony. A chuck-wagon accompanies each outfit. This is usually of the United States Army type, solidly built and hauled by four mules. The cook of the outfit is the driver. He has a helper, a tenderfoot, or a boy learning the trade. In the field only the bravest dares defy the cook. His word on the camp is law. All the men are subject to his call.
By the time the chuck-wagon had come to a halt and the cook had clambered stiffly from his seat to prepare the noonday meal, Lawler and the others saw the horse-wrangler and his assistant descending the long slope with the remuda. The horses had fallen far behind, and Lawler rode to meet them, curious to know what had happened.
No one else seemed to feel any responsibility in the matter, and the store clerks did not care what the Flying U outfit had to eat. For that reason the chuck-wagon contained in an hour many articles which were strange to it, and lacked a few things which might justly be called necessities.
On the way to the chuck-wagon she passed close to George Drazk. It was evident that he had chosen a station with that result in view. She had passed by when she turned, whimsically. "Well, George, how's that Pete-horse?" she said. "Up an comin' all the time, Zen," he answered. She bit her lip over his familiarity, but she had no come-back. She had given him the opening, by calling him "George."
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