Sheep Limit/Chapter 7
Elmer Tippie made his appearance a little after sunset, his approach announced by the noise of the three wagons in his train long before they came in sight. There were four horses to a wagon, each of the vehicles being pretty well loaded with boxes, barrels and sacks. Rawlins beheld this wholesale provisioning with amazement. He thought that must be a heavy-feeding family if that represented only six months' supplies, as Mrs. Duke had told him her foreman was bringing along from Jasper.
On this point Rawlins received considerable enlightenment while he helped Elmer and the drivers put the teams away. That generous providing was mainly on account of twelve sheep-herders who were looking after a matter of thirty thousand sheep carrying the big black D on the adjoining range.
That was a business of considerably more importance than the modest homestead indicated. Ewes were selling in that day around five dollars a head on the range; wool at forty cents a pound. It required no very difficult computation to arrive at the conclusion that Mrs. Duke was one of the big ones in the sheep world of whom Clemmons had spoken.
One of the drivers said that was the third trip they had made to Jasper in the past month with the spring clip from Mrs. Duke's flock. Not from the ranch; few sheep were sheared on the ranch. There were some big shearing-pens about half-way between there and Jasper, where flocks for miles around were assembled at shearing-time. Yes, they'd marketed a right smart of wool that spring, the driver said, which was as close to a specific statement as he appeared willing to go, in the manner of suspicious caution that seemed to afflict everybody who had anything to do with sheep.
Edith had not said anything to reveal the magnitude of their enterprise; Mrs. Duke had kept her voluble mouth shut on her numbers and extent. Rawlins had concluded them to be considerably more important than Clemmons, yet far below the greasy plutocrats from whom he had drawn his inspiration on the Kansas City market.
Rawlins wondered, in the light of this information gathered from the driver, what part Edith had in the concern, if any at all beyond her position in the household as ward of her aunt; whether she was native to that country, and if not, whence she had come, and when. It was not extraordinary that a young man should think more about a young woman at that juncture of events than of sheep, even thirty thousand sheep. The mind of youth commonly turns to such contemplation. It is a sort of entrancing obligato to the solo of a young man's life.
Rawlins made it a point to introduce himself to Elmer Tippie before going in to supper, explaining his presence at the ranch, and putting in his application for a job. Tippie looked him over slowly, being a deliberate and cautious man, and said he'd let him know in the morning. This being as nearly a direct answer as could be expected of a sheepman, Rawlins was satisfied.
Tippie appeared to be an austere and unfriendly man. He was somewhere between fifty and sixty, a dark, sinewy man of medium stature, his corduroy pantaloons, laced into knee boots, bagging like a zouave's. It might have been that whiskers were bringing forty dollars, where wool brought forty cents, a pound, judging by the closely shaved appearance of Tippie's lean, brown, tough-skinned face.
He wore a black leather coat that appeared to be made of whaleskin, or the skin of some creature that lived in water, it was so oily and glistening. Tippie scarcely opened his thin lips when he spoke, his words coming out with a nosy, surly sound. He gave the impression of a man who had been cheated early in life, and never had ceased brooding over it.
The two drivers kindled a fire by the creek, dipping water from it for their coffee, neither invited to their employer's table nor expecting to be. Rawlins stood watching them while Tippie talked in the kitchen door with Mrs. Duke, wondering how he should take to that sort of life, and whether the social distinction that appeared to bar them from the ranch-house table would be enforced in his case when he put on a duck coat with sheepskin collar and became the warder of sheep on the dusty hills.
A long table stood in the big kitchen, room at it for a dozen men, one end, only, being prepared for use of the present company. Mrs. Duke sat at the top, Tippie at one hand, Dowell Peck across from him. Edith was beside Peck, Rawlins opposite looking into her troubled eyes. Below them there was a barren of white cloth, as if the table had grown since the dishes were placed, stretching out in rebuke of the inhospitality shown the two men at the creekside, calling reproving attention to the fact of there being plenty room for all.
There was ham on a large platter; there was canned corn. There were potatoes, shipped from Colorado, and butter that was made in a Kansas City packing house from the fat of Texas beeves; it was currently known as bull butter in the sheep country, where it was generally favored above the natural product. Perhaps this was on the argument that any kind of butter that involved the life and carcass of the cow in making was the best kind of butter for people who were the uncompromising enemies of cows. There was milk in a tin from New Jersey, there were preserves of chemical composition, palely pink, gelatinously quaking, which came from Chicago. It was a largely artificial meal, but there was plenty of it.
Tippie had removed his leather coat and hung it on a hook that appeared to be reserved for him on the back of the kitchen door, disclosing a neat black jersey, and necktie of hue somewhat shocking in the light of his sour countenance and unfrivolous mien. Opposite him Peck sat with elbows spread wide on the cloth, amazingly arrayed in a Tuxedo coat with satin lapels, a low-cut, brocaded vest, a white shirt with bosom as big as the ham platter, and of similar form. All that could be seen of him above the table was correct to a hair, even to the balance of a hair, which was parted to equilibristic exactness on the roof of his sharp head.
Mrs. Duke surveyed the mail-order beau with approbation and pride. She said that was the cutest little coat she ever saw; she never wished she was a man so much before in all her experience as at that minute, so she might wear one of its pattern. Mr. Peck must be careful of the ham gravy. It would be a shame to splash it on that fine garment, especially the satin lapels, where it would be harder to remove than freckles.
Peck smiled, serenely, supremely. Plebeians might splash gravy on their coats; trust a man of his finesse to come through with his Tuxedo as spotless as a cherry blossom on the topmost twig.
"Did you bring some magazines for the men, Elmer?" Mrs. Duke inquired.
"Um-m-m," said Tippie, making a grudging noise that might have been interpreted variously by one unaccustomed with his speech.
"I'm glad you did, I never had such a readin' bunch of sheep-herders as them boys. One of 'em's got a lot of law books out there in his wagon, studies 'em all the time. I think he's a little cracked."
Tippie was not interested in the literary hunger of the herders. He was mixing potato and corn, morosely absorbed in the enterprise, chopping and stirring with practiced hand. When he had it right, he added ham gravy.
Peck watched the preparation of this dish with patronizing amusement, which was spiced with a dash of disdain, as the set of his moustache expressed. He turned to Mrs. Duke with a knowing smirk, as if he would slyly call her attention to the crude fellow's method contrasted to the feeding of a gentleman from St. Joe. Mrs. Duke's attention was fixed on her own plate, where she was mixing potato and corn.
Peck flushed a little, lifting his thin shoulders in expression of growing disdain, the left wing of his moustache twitching as he raised the corner of his lip to vent his contempt. He leaned toward Edith, nudged her with his bony elbow, all fixed to give her a knowing look that would contrast the crudities of certain of the company with his own refinements. Edith looked up with startled face, dropping her fork on her plate with a clatter. Peck's flush deepened; his look of high disdain was clouded over by one of sad disappointment. Edith had just begun to mix potato and corn.
Across the board in Rawlins' quarter there was neither sympathy nor support for Peck. Rawlins was reaching for the ham gravy that moment to pour it over his potato and corn.
Determined to show them this was not the method, even though he stood alone, Peck took one of the dishes reserved by Mrs. Duke for the pink preserves, filled it with stewed corn and began to eat it elegantly with a spoon. He dipped from him, leaning forward to meet the spoon with each replenishment, his implement held with thumb and three fingers, the fourth member extended in the crook of true refinement.
Even though Peck's performance might have been marred a little to the fastidious person by the gawping sound he made each time he leaned forward and opened wide his big red mouth, like a young robin stretching its beak for a worm, it was carried off with an air of censuring triumph. Mrs. Duke suspended her own replenishment to watch him, following each dipping and lifting of the spoon with a movement of the eyes and head, very much as a dog watches the transference of every morsel his master raises from the dish.
Mrs. Duke was so engaged by this exposition of deportment as to forget her own standard mixture until Peck had dipped the last grain of corn from his dish. She drew a long breath, apparently as much relieved as if she had watched her guest through some danger into which his ignorance had enticed him. She did not comment on Peck's performance, although it was plain she had been impressed by it, probably not altogether in the way he had intended.
Peck dabbed his napkin to his moustache in a truly dainty and high-bred way, looking around the silent table with the triumphant, greedy expression of a cat that has just finished a bird. It was plain that some vindictiveness had attended this lesson in table manners, which Peck was not wholly able to conceal.
"I met that little wool buyer from Boston down at Jasper," Tippie said, speaking above his operations on a large piece of ham which he was cutting into bites before beginning to eat, pushing the severed pieces out of the way to the farther side of his plate.
"Mr. Murray?" inquired Mrs. Duke.
"No, not Murray. Feller that bought your wool three years ago."
"You don't mean Mr. Fairweather, Elmer?"
"Yes, Fairweather. Couldn't think of it. Nearest I could come was Blizzard."
This attempt at a joke, lame as it was, came so unexpectedly from the glum mouth of Tippie that it set Mrs. Duke back on her heels, figuratively, with laughter. Even Edith forgot the shadow of her mail-order beau for a moment to laugh, looking across at Rawlins for his support, which he gave heartily. Peck seemed rather bewildered than amused. He looked from one to another as if the point of the joke might be flying around the table and he expected to nab it by being alert.
"Oh, yes, I got you," he said. "Wool—blizzard—darn good joke!"
When Peck laughed, as he did immediately on his discovery of what he thought to be the humor of the thing, he elongated himself like a worm, making a croaking, dismal, distressing noise that was comparable to nothing but the working of a dry pump. Tippie, whose face had not shown a crease of mirth while the others laughed, looked up severely at Peck's outbreak, and solemnly offered him water.
"No, thanks," Peck declined, seeing no reason for such an act of courtesy at all.
Tippie put the pitcher down.
"Sounded like you needed primin'," he said.
"You was startin' to tell me about Fairweather," Mrs. Duke reminded her foreman.
"He was about to start off up here to see you, but I told him he might as well save his time. He wanted to contract for your clip next spring at forty cents, willin' to advance a dollar a head to bind you."
"I wouldn't 'a' took it, just as well he had sense enough to take your word. Wool's goin' to see sixty cents before next shearin'; sheep's gittin' scarcer on the range every day, with all this fencin' and farmin'. I tell you, us sheepmen that's in the business now stands to cover up our past losses if we can stick."
"How many have you got, ma'am?" Peck inquired.
"Oh, I've got several, enough to keep me busy," Mrs. Duke replied. "Did you bring that change up from the bank, Elmer?"
"Um-m-m," said Elmer. "Out in the wagon. Forgot to bring it in."
Seeing that he was down to the last bite of ham, Elmer pushed back, refusing the dessert, saying he'd bring in that change. He returned soon with a bulky package done up in a newspaper, resumed his place at the table, removed the wrapper, displaying a bale of money big enough to choke a cow.
"Used the dern stuff for a piller comin' up," said Elmer. "I guess it's all there, I told 'em to put it up a thousand in a bunch."
Elmer passed the change, which he seemed to contemn with some sort of deep-seated grudge, along to his employer, who began nonchalantly to count the bunches which contained a thousand each, piling them carelessly on the side next to Peck. There were fourteen bundles of the banknotes. When she had verified the count by this rough operation, Mrs. Duke nodded, as if fourteen thousand dollars were but a small item in her daily doings, nothing but change, indeed. She handed a bundle to Tippie.
"I guess you'd better start around to-morrow and pay the boys," she said.
"Um-m-m," said Tippie. He put the money in the pocket of his jersey, the end of it protruding like the come-on roll of a capper at a game.
Peck's exophthalmic eyes enlarged four diameters, apparently, at sight of the money. He turned pale with amazement, his moustache seemed to droop in the close proximity of wealth so carelessly handled.
"Gosh all fiddlers!" he said, leaning toward Mrs. Duke, touching the pile of greasy sheeplands currency with his finger as if to assure himself that it was real. "Ain't you scairt somebody'll come along and hold you up?"
Mrs. Duke looked at him sharply, rebuke in every feature, strangely altered from their good-natured cast to one of stony hardness.
"We don't have that kind of people in this country," she said.
"I wouldn't trust nobody no further than I could see 'em on a cloudy night," Peck declared, with such vehemence that his sincerity could not be questioned.
"You was brought up in a city," Mrs. Duke returned, softened by his honest concern for her money. "In this country we don't go around stickin' folks up with a gun—if we want to rob 'em we build a fence. Nobody'd touch money in this country if they found it layin' at the fork of the road—they'd think somebody'd left it there to pay off one of their hands. We do it, right along. If we can't find one of our sheep-herders when we want to pay him off, we just leave the money in a split stick till he comes along and finds it."
That was a standard sheepman joke for pulling on greenhorns; Rawlins had heard it many a time before. Sometimes a sheepman could get it off as if he believed it; Mrs. Duke had it down pretty well herself. It was another wonder of an unaccountable place to Peck. His eyes bulged again; he stared at the complacent sheepwoman in amazement too great for words.
"The dickens you do!" he said at last, feebly, almost overcome by the enormity of his surprise.
"Yes," she said. "How's business in St. Joe?"
"Rairin'," said Peck, brightening. "Excuse me a minute—I've got something I want to show you boys."
Tippie looked after him with considerable interest as he unfolded his great length and left the room briskly.
"What's he got them stripes down his pants for?" he asked, turning to Rawlins. "Is he a soldier or something?"
"He's a mail-order man," Mrs. Duke whispered, not waiting for Rawlins' reply. "He's Edith's mail-order beau."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Aunt Lila!' Edith protested, furiously red, about at the end of her endurance for this joke.
"Mail-order?" Tippie repeated, mystified, but not in the least amused, as far as any expression of his features disclosed. "You mean ordered out of the catalogue on one of them yellow blanks?"
Peck was in the door before Mrs. Duke could go into the romantic affair any farther. He came to the table bearing a large folio book of some sort, with a picture in colors of a sprucely dressed man on the cover, which he put down on the cloth. Rawlins recognized it as a tailor's style book. On this Peck spread a number of little squares of cloth, bound by brass clips, sorting among them for the one he wanted.
"I've got a line of nifty suitings to show this spring," he said, offering a block of samples to Tippie, another to Rawlins. "You boys run your eyes over these plaids—Scotch tweeds, genuine imported stuff, can't be matched for the money between here and Chicago."
He centered on Tippie, misled by his curious inspection of the little squares of samples into the belief that he was a promising prospect.
"You ought to have a sport suit or two, just the thing for this sheep business, runnin' over the country—knee pants, you know, free and roomy—just the thing for this sheep business, don't you think?"
"Um-m-m," said Tippie, turning the cloth leaves of the little book of samples.
"I could take your measure to-night and have your suit back here in three weeks, fit guaranteed," Peck proposed enthusiastically. "Or, if you don't fancy a sport suit, I'd like you to run your eye over these coatings and vestings. I've got as fine a line of pantings as you'll find in this country—I defy any tailor between New York and St. Joe to beat 'em, or match my prices and workmanship. If them pantings"
"No," said Tippie, handing back the samples. "I bought me a pair of shoesings and a hatting down at Jasper. I won't be needin' any more clothes for a couple years."
Rawlins withdrew from the company shortly after Peck's mercantile efforts had fallen flat, feeling himself an embarrassment, rather than a help, to Edith in her ridiculous situation. He took his pack to the bunkhouse, where he was joined shortly by Tippie. They sat outside with backs against the wall, smoking, becoming quite friendly, much to Rawlins' surprise and gratification.
"Mail-order man," Tippie reflected. "What in the devil did she mean by mail-order man?"
Rawlins explained the situation, giving Edith the innocent end of it, although he did not feel that she deserved it entirely. He could not get away from the thought that she must have been pretty warm in her correspondence with Peck to lure him on a journey so epochal for the tailor as that, but he was almost eloquent in his assurance that the young lady of the ranch was miserable over the adventure the way it had turned out, sharing with Tippie the confidence she had placed in him that afternoon.
Tippie was keen for the diversion it would afford them to work out a scheme for the discomfiture and routing of the mail-order beau. He pledged his full assistance, giving Rawlins to understand that he was one of the attaches of the ranch thenceforward.
"I'd like to put a split stick on that feller's tail," Tippie said. "I'd like to see him throw his feet and run."