Adventure Magazine, April 10, 1924 — page 80: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

78 Adventure he’d have to go without that thousand dollar bonus, though, for when we settled up at Browne’s we learned that Buell still had three day’s shearin’. “Well, good-by, bonus,” I said while we was packin’ our stuff after supper. “But you done mighty well as it was.”’ “Tf I don’t win that bonus I’d as well not have made a dollar,’”’ Owen says grimly, “but I ain’t give up makin’ that prize yet.” Well, we packed our junk, an’ hired a wagon to drive us down to Buell’s corral that night, an’ when the cook commenced hammerin’ his breakfast call on the tri- angle we was ready to file in. We went around the end of a long table an’ filed in on a bench, an’ it so happened that Owen was next to Riggins. “How you been comin’?”’ Owen asks Riggins. Riggins was sure packin’ a grouch. “Don’t talk to me, yuh,” he snarls. “What’s the matter?’ Owen persists. “You got the best o’ the trade didn’t you with three more days to go. You sure ought to git a lead on me in that time. How many you got?” “T got just four thousand two hundred an’ forty-one outa thirty-five an’ a half day’s shearin’,” Riggins grunts. It wasn’t much better than I’d done myself. “Why, I’ve got seventy-four twenty-eight in that time,’’ Owen says. He done a bit o’ quick figgerin’. “Why that puts me twenty-one hundred ° an’ ninety-four fleeces ahead o’ you.” “Tt does, an’ you knew —— well it would when yuh wanted to change bookin’s with me,” Riggins snapped. Just then the Sanpeters come filin’ in to breakfast, an’ Riggins gives ’em a glance plumb full 0’ pizen hate. It was plain to tell, then, what had happened. That Sanpeter bunch had give Riggins exactly the same kind of a deal they’d give Owen at Dad Shipman’s. There was more excuse for Riggins takin’ it because he wasn’t a big man. | Just then big Chris Jensen’s eyes lighted on us an’ the big yaller-haired gorilla pulled his face into a scowl an’ sings out— “What you wool-pickers mean comin’ in here eatin’ with the men?” Wool-pickers are the guys who scour the ranges pickin’ the wool off the sheep that die on the range. fer a man to fall. Big Chris is comin’ down toward us on the opposite side of the table an’ he’s backed up by his cousin Pete, an’ Larsen the grinder. “ll give you a hundred dollars for the use of your pen the rest o’ the run,’”? Owen whispers to Riggins. It was more than Riggins could make a-shearin’, an’ he was definitely out of the prize contest. “T’ll take it,” he says. Big Chris stops directly opposite us, an’ Jeans across the table till his ugly mug is right over our plates. “How many sheep you claim to a- sheared?” he snorts. Owen gives him the total figgers, an’ adds that they’re backed up by the papers of the boss of every corral where we’ve worked. Jensen went red, an’ somebody at the other end o’ the table sings out— “He got yuh skinned just ninety-eight head, Chris.” “What of it?” roars big Chris. “I’ve got three days to shear, an’ he’s through.” “T’m still shearin’,”” Owen says mildly. “T just bought Riggins’ pen for the rest o’ the season.” Big Chris lets out a howl, an’ for a min- ute he acts like he’s goin’ to come square over the table. “Look here, you crook,” he yells, “yuh don’t shear in this corral—not a sheep.” “The only man can stop me is George Buell, an’ I reckon he won’t care if Riggins is willin’ to give up his job to me,” Owen says, an’ for the first time in months there’s a kind of ring in his voice, but at that it don’t ring just true to me. “What about it, Buell?’ Jensen demands. ‘““Hle can shear,” Buell says. “All I’m interested in is gittin’ through. An’ as far as that prize money you fellers is after is concerned it’s to encourage every man that’s after it to hump himself for the whole season. Davis has got a right to buy a job if he wants to.”’ ‘“‘There’s this much abcut it, Jensen,”’ Owen speaks up quietly. “If you start a fight at this stage of the game I’ll guarantee that whether you lick’‘me or not you won’t be able to shear for three days, an’ I’ll be ahead of you if I don’t win that bonus.” Big Chris rocked back an’ forth on his feet tryin’ to make up his mind. He never Lower’n that it’s hard COMmiClOOokkS.GO© 5}