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Close the door, Don Ransom, and I will speak. I see in your face that you know." An hour Ranse spent behind Tia Juana's closed door. As he was on his way back to the house Curly called to him from the wagon-shed. The tramp sat on his cot, swinging his feet and smoking. "Say, sport," he grumbled. "This is no way to treat a man after kidnappin' him.
"Tia Juana, who am I?" he repeated, with his stern eyes looking into hers. A frightened look came in the old woman's face. She fumbled with her black shawl. "Who am I, Tia Juana?" said Ranse once more. "Thirty-two years I have lived on the Rancho Cibolo," said Tia Juana. "I thought to be buried under the coma mott beyond the garden before these things should be known.
And then Ranse furnished Curly with mounts and saddle and equipment, and turned him over to Buck Rabb, instructing him to finish the job. Three weeks later Ranse rode from the ranch into Rabb's camp, which was then in Snake Valley. The boys were saddling for the day's ride. He sought out Long Collins among them. "How about that bronco?" he asked. Long Collins grinned.
"Say, you shanghaied me on your d d old prairie schooner did I tell you to drive me to a farm? I want a drink. I'm goin' all to little pieces. What's doin'?" Ranse saw that the tramp's nerves were racking him. He despatched one of the Mexican boys to the ranch-house for a glass of whisky.
Ranse Truesdell, driving, threw the reins to the ground and laughed. "It's under the wagon sheet, boys," he said. "I know what you're waiting for. If Sam lets it run out again we'll use those yellow shoes of his for a target. There's two cases. Pull 'em out and light up. I know you all want a smoke."
He became on friendly and then on intimate terms with soap and water. And the thing that pleased Ranse most was that his "subject" held his ground at each successive higher step. But the steps were sometimes far apart. Once he got at the quart bottle of whisky kept sacredly in the grub tent for rattlesnake bites, and spent sixteen hours on the grass, magnificently drunk.
G'wan or I'll punch some of yer faces." "Drag him out, Collins," said Ranse. Curly took a slide and felt the ground rise up and collide with his shoulder blades. He got up and sat on the steps of the store shivering from outraged nerves, hugging his knees and sneering. Taylor lifted out a case of tobacco and wrenched off its top. Six cigarettes began to glow, bringing peace and forgiveness to Sam.
He became on friendly and then on intimate terms with soap and water. And the thing that pleased Ranse most was that his "subject" held his ground at each successive higher step. But the steps were sometimes far apart. Once he got at the quart bottle of whisky kept sacredly in the grub tent for rattlesnake bites, and spent sixteen hours on the grass, magnificently drunk.
Soon, mounted on Vaminos, Ranse leaned in the saddle, pressed with his knees, and galloped eastward past the store, where sat Sam trying his guitar in the moonlight. Vaminos shall have a word Vaminos the good dun horse. The Mexicans, who have a hundred names for the colours of a horse, called him /gruyo/. He was a mouse-coloured, slate-coloured, flea-bitten roan- dun, if you can conceive it.
"Go to the other end of the lake and use this," he said. "Buck will give you some dry clothes at the wagon." The tramp obeyed without protest. By the time supper was ready he had returned to camp. He was hardly to be recognised in his new shirt and brown duck clothes. Ranse observed him out of the corner of his eye. "Lordy, I hope he ain't a coward," he was saying to himself.
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