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Page 7
"I have two sections leased from the state," said old man Ellison, mildly.
"Not by no means you haven't," said King James. "Your lease expired
yesterday; and I had a man at the land office on the minute to take it
up. You don't control a foot of grass in Texas. You sheep men have got
to git. Your time's up. It's a cattle country, and there ain't any room
in it for snoozers. This range you've got your sheep on is mine. I'm
putting up a wire fence, forty by sixty miles; and if there's a sheep
inside of it when it's done it'll be a dead one. I'll give you a week to
move yours away. If they ain't gone by then, I'll send six men over here
with Winchesters to make mutton out of the whole lot. And if I find you
here at the same time this is what you'll get."
King James patted the breech of his shot-gun warningly.
Old man Ellison rode on to the camp of Incarnacion. He sighed many times,
and the wrinkles in his face grew deeper. Rumours that the old order was
about to change had reached him before. The end of Free Grass was in
sight. Other troubles, too, had been accumulating upon his shoulders.
His flocks were decreasing instead of growing; the price of wool was
declining at every clip; even Bradshaw, the storekeeper at Frio City, at
whose store he bought his ranch supplies, was dunning him for his last six
months' bill and threatening to cut him off. And so this last greatest
calamity suddenly dealt out to him by the terrible King James was a
crusher.
When the old man got back to the ranch at sunset he found Sam Galloway
lying on his cot, propped against a roll of blankets and wool sacks,
fingering his guitar.
"Hello, Uncle Ben," the troubadour called, cheerfully. "You rolled in
early this evening. I been trying a new twist on the Spanish Fandango
to-day. I just about got it. Here's how she goes -- listen."
"That's fine, that's mighty fine," said old man Ellison, sitting on the
kitchen step and rubbing his white, Scotch-terrier whiskers. "I reckon
you've got all the musicians beat east and west, Sam, as far as the roads
are cut out."
"Oh, I don't know," said Sam, reflectively. "But I certainly do get there
on variations. I guess I can handle anything in five flats about as well
as any of 'em. But you look kind of fagged out, Uncle Ben -- ain't you
feeling right well this evening?"
"Little tired; that's all, Sam. If you ain't played yourself out, let's
have that Mexican piece that starts off with: '_Huile, huile, palomita_.'
It seems that that song always kind of soothes and comforts me after I've
been riding far or anything bothers me."
"Why, _seguramente_, _senor_," said Sam. "I'll hit her up for you as
often as you like. And before I forget about it, Uncle Ben, you want to
jerk Bradshaw up about them last hams he sent us. They're just a little
bit strong."
A man sixty-five years old, living on a sheep ranch and beset by a
complication of disasters, cannot successfully and continuously
dissemble. Moreover, a troubadour has eyes quick to see unhappiness in
others around him -- because it disturbs his own ease. So, on the next
day, Sam again questioned the old man about his air of sadness and
abstraction. Then old man Ellison told him the story of King James's
threats and orders and that pale melancholy and red ruin appeared to have
marked him for their own. The troubadour took the news thoughtfully. He
had heard much about King James.
On the third day of the seven days of grace allowed him by the autocrat of
the range, old man Ellison drove his buckboard to Frio City to fetch some
necessary supplies for the ranch. Bradshaw was hard but not implacable.
He divided the old man's order by two, and let him have a little more
time. One article secured was a new, fine ham for the pleasure of the
troubadour.
Five miles out of Frio City on his way home the old man met King James
riding into town. His majesty could never look anything but fierce and
menacing, but to-day his slits of eyes appeared to be a little wider than
they usually were.
"Good day," said the king, gruffly. "I've been wanting to see you. I
hear it said by a cowman from Sandy yesterday that you was from Jackson
County, Mississippi, originally. I want to know if that's a fact."
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